


The Minor Fall and the Major Lift

by withdiamonds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:40:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withdiamonds/pseuds/withdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam dies bloody in the mud at Cold Oak, he faces a choice. His soul can move on to wherever it is souls go, or he can stay and try to help his brother deal. Sam refuses to leave Dean alone with his grief and so he stays, hoping his presence will ease Dean's pain. There's really nothing that can do that, though, and Sam's unseen presence only makes things worse. Then Dean goes and finds himself a crossroads demon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Minor Fall and the Major Lift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Supernatural_J2 Big Bang challenge, 2010
> 
> The art is [here, at feyuca's journal.](http://feyuca.livejournal.com/9037.html?format=light)

_Greater love hath no man than this…_

 

The darkness is so total, so impenetrable, that Sam doesn't know if his eyes are open, if he's blind, or if he even exists.

He has no idea where he is.

He calls for his brother. Calling for Dean is as natural as breathing, something Sam's been doing all his life, for as long as he can remember. It's second nature and he doesn't even think about it.

He just does it.

In his darkest moments of rage and despair, in his highest moments of joy and love, Sam calls for Dean.

The only time Dean doesn't answer is when Sam has left him behind.

He calls for Dean, but there's no response. Sam isn't aware of having left Dean. He had no intentions of leaving, had no reason to leave. But no matter how hard Sam strains to hear in the all-encompassing silence, there's no answering call.

He yells until he's hoarse; screams until his throat is raw, until he can't hear his own voice anymore. He's not sure if he ever could. He's not sure of anything here.

It's a void, stretching out endlessly in all directions.

He doesn't feel any pain - no physical pain anyway, only the terrible pain of silence.

Sam's eyes burn in the suffocating darkness; they fill and overflow, tears running down his face, and that's real. That he can feel.

But there's no solid surface under him; he's floating, but he's not. He feels suspended yet tethered at the same time and it's disorienting as hell.

Sam thinks; he tries to remember what happened, why he would be in this place that isn't a place. He needs to remember.

Whatever it is, he knows it's worse than his deepest, darkest fears.

He remembers Dean, on his knees in the mud, holding him, making him feel safe. Dean's terrified voice gasping in his ear, his tears falling on Sam's neck. There was excruciating pain in his back and he was cold and numb, but Dean's tears were hot on his skin.

They weren't enough to warm him.

Sam couldn't feel his legs, and his arms flopped uselessly by his side. There was rain, and Dean's voice, calling his name, hoarse and broken.

Time passes, except it doesn't. An instant or an eon, Sam has no idea; there's no way to measure it. It's all jumbled, like a broken kaleidoscope.

He hears Dean calling his name.

_Sam! Look out!_

Jake was there, fighting Sam with superhuman strength, but Sam managed to hold his own and knock Jake out. He remembers that.

He remembers knocking Jake to the ground. Sam glared down at him, consumed with rage. His mind was filled with a red haze of fury, and then the anger faded as he watched Jake's unconscious face.

_It isn't even that bad._

Sam lowered his arm and tossed the knife away. It wasn't worth it. He didn't want to kill Jake. None of this was Jake's fault. It was the demon that needed to die.

The demon that killed Mom and Jess. That took Dad, sent him to Hell.

That tried to kill _Dean_.

That son of a bitch.

_We're gonna patch you up good, okay, good as new. I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna take care of you, I gotcha, that's my job, right? Watching out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother…_

*

~ "Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy?"

Sam opened his eyes, but it was still dark, and he huddled back under the covers, tucking his head into Dean's shoulder. He could hear Dean sigh, his chest moving reassuringly while he huffed out his exasperation at his pain-in-the-ass little brother.

"Dude, it's okay. It was just a noise. A cat, or something. Trust me, Sammy, if it was dangerous, I'd know." Dean's voice held a confidence that filled Sam with awe.

"What if it's not a cat, Dean? What if it's something that's gonna come through the window and get us?" Sam closed his eyes so tight he saw sparkles behind his eyelids. He tried not to imagine what was out there in the dark, beyond the motel room door. It could be anything, and here his imagination failed him, because whatever it was might be so horrible as to defy description, or mere imagining.

"Sammy, go to sleep. It's almost morning. It'll be daylight soon. The dark will be all gone." Dean's voice soothed him, and after a while Sam heard it slip away into sleepy mumbles as Dean fell asleep.

And Sam knew it was safe to follow him. ~

*

It's dark in the shadows of the abandoned town. The short, squat buildings block out the low moonlight, casting the whole area into gloom. The bell tower looms menacingly over everything that's spread out in its shadow.

"Sam!"

The only light Dean can see is Sam coming towards him, holding his left arm, looking tired and beat all to hell.

"Dean!" Sam's voice is gravel-rough, broken with exhaustion.

A shape darker than the surrounding shadows moves, coming up behind Sam, and Dean breaks into a run. It's too late; it was always going to be too late. Dean knows that instinctively. No matter how many times he lives the moment again in his dreams, no matter how many times his brain makes him replay it, again and again and again, it will always be too late.

He'll never make it in time. He never could.

"Sam, look out!"

The dark shape moves again and Sam is caught up short, arched backwards, his face a grimace of pain, his mouth open in a silent grunt.

Sam sways in place and Dean runs. He'll be running forever. It's like running through water, through quicksand; he isn't moving forward, dammit, he needs to go _forward_…

…and Sam hits his knees but still he doesn't fall. He wavers and thank Christ, Dean feels a burst of speed and he's finally there. The quicksand lets him go and Sam is in his arms where he belongs.

Where Dean can keep him safe.

But Sam is dead weight _not dead_ and his arms flop as if he's a giant ragdoll – and wouldn't that be funny, won't that be something to tease Sam about later, when he wakes up - how he was like a big, over-sized doll, his arms flopping loosely, uselessly, at his sides.

Sam's head lolls on Dean's shoulder and Dean starts talking frantically, panic-stricken, his words falling out and tumbling over each other.

"Sam, Sam, Sam, hey, come on, come here, let me look at you, hey, look, it's not even that bad, it's not even that bad. All right, Sammy, Sam, hey, listen to me, we're gonna patch you up, okay, good as new, I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna take care of you, I gotcha, that's my job, right? Watching out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sammy no, nononononono, oh God," and Sam's not moving, he's gone, he's not there and Dean screams his name into the unanswering darkness.

*

The acrid tang of blood fills Dean's nostrils. He's choking on the sweet, coppery smell of it, and he gags, turning his head and vomiting into the deep mud he's afraid his car is stuck in.

Dean ducks his head and quickly wipes his mouth on his shoulder, puke on his jacket to go along with the streaks of blood and smears of mud that are already all over it. He never loses his grip on Sam, though, his knuckles white as he strains not to let go.

"Here, Dean, let me –"

"I got it, Bobby," Dean growls, radiating _stay back, don't touch_ vibes. Bobby takes a step back, raising his hands in a placating gesture and no longer reaching for Sam.

Dean has to get Sam in the car, and he doesn't need help. He doesn't want anyone to touch his brother beside himself.

He can't do it, though. Sam's too big, too heavy, and his weight - _dead weight_, Dean's mind screams - defeats him.

He lets Bobby take Sam's feet and together they manhandle his brother into the back seat of the Impala. Dean carefully arranges Sam's arms, folding them across his chest, but the right one won't stay. It keeps sliding off onto the floor and Dean is frantic to keep it in place.

He doesn't know what he'll do if Sam's arm doesn't stay up, if it keeps flopping around like that.

He doesn't know what he'll do.

*

~ "Sammy, you okay back there?" Dean twisted around to peer over the front seat at his little brother. Sam had the flu, and Dean had asked Dad why they couldn't stick around the little town they were in and the room they'd been renting for just one more day, but Dad had said no, they had to meet Caleb on Thursday.

Sam had thrown up all over himself after they'd stopped for lunch and now the smell of puke clung to them all, lingered in the car like a miasma of doom, but at least Sam was sleeping now.

His head rolled around on the seat and Dean reached back as far as he could, shoving Sam's wadded up jacket under him for support. Sam's arm hung off the edge of the seat, fingertips barely brushing the floor, and Dean picked it up and tucked it carefully next to his side.

Sam was burning up; Dean could feel it, even through his t-shirt.

"Dad," he started, and John looked back at Sam in the rearview mirror and frowned.

"Yeah, Dean. We'll stop soon, get some more Tylenol in him, get him into bed." John's knuckles were white where his hands gripped the steering wheel. He glanced down at Dean as Dean turned back around in his seat. "He'll be fine, son."

Dean nodded. He knew Dad wouldn't let anything really bad happen. They'd look out for Sammy, Dad and Dean together. That's what they did. ~

*

Sam's head rolls loosely on the seat and he's still doing his best impression of a rag doll, so Dean hastily strips off his jacket and balls it up, shoving it between Sam's head and the back of the seat, just so he doesn't look so…lifeless.

Soon enough, Sam will be stiff. His head won't bobble around and his arms will stay where Dean puts them – Dean shakes his head sharply to get that image to go the hell away, and he tucks Sam's feet in, bending his knees to make sure both of those gigantic boats will fit. Then he carefully closes the car door.

He moves slowly and with care, keeping his mind focused on getting the key in the ignition of the Impala, on following Bobby's tail lights. Dean's hands are shaking and he grips the steering wheel tight to make them stop. He takes shallow breaths, making sure to breathe through his mouth, not his nose. That way he won't be able to smell the blood, or the filthy mud that's covering his boots, creeping up the legs of his jeans, tightening around his knees.

Dean's mind skitters away from what's lying across the back seat of his car. This isn't real, it can't be happening, so he's not going to think about it. He doesn't smell anything; there's no sharp scent of copper assailing his nostrils. Dean hums Metallica to himself, left hand on the wheel, right hand jittering on his thigh, as he drives through the night with only his dead brother's body for company.

*

Sam wants to reach over and touch Dean, but he doesn't think he can. He's not sure how this works but he thinks he's at least figured out what's going on.

He's having an out-of-body experience. He's never had one before, but there's a first time for everything and it's a logical extension of his psychic abilities.

Dean's gonna shit a brick when he finds out. Sam maybe needs to figure out a way to avoid having to tell him. Dean never needs to know about this little exercise in psychic weirdness, if Sam plays his cards right.

That's not the only thing Sam doesn't want to tell Dean about. No way is his brother going to find out that Sam is some kind of a freak, a freak that was fed demon blood when he was a baby. Even Dean's loyalty will only go so far and Sam's guess is that demon blood is right in the vicinity of the limit of Dean's brotherly love, or at least his tolerance. Dean will always love Sam; of that Sam has no doubt. On the other hand, Sam doesn't want to put it to a test.

Dean has always seen things in black and white, and in spite of Lenore, in spite of Molly and Madison, that hasn't changed much. He didn't kill Sam those couple of times Sam thought he should have, but if Sam's honest with himself, he doesn't think he could stand to see the look in Dean's eyes if he found out that Sam's been infected with demon blood. That he's carried that kind of a taint around for his whole life.

So, out-of-body experience it is. Sam's riding in the front seat of the Impala, next to Dean, same as he's done more times than he can count over the course of a lifetime. And his body is in the back seat, unconscious, looking plenty the worse for wear. He'd watched Dean arrange him so carefully, but his arm is hanging loosely off the seat and Dean keeps glancing back at it, his jaw set tight, his eyes haunted.

"It's okay, Dean," Sam says. "Dude, it's just my arm." He turns around and reaches back to try and pick up his arm, to get it to stay next to his body on the seat. He's not sure if he'll actually be able to touch himself from the astral plane, or wherever the hell he is, but it's obviously bothering Dean so he'll give it a try.

Sam can touch himself, it turns out, and he recoils at the sensation. His skin is cold to the touch; the flesh seems to have the density and give of modeling clay.

His arm dangles there, swaying with the movement of the car, and Sam leaves it where it is. He can't bring himself to touch it again.

*

It's so goddamn quiet. Even when he's not talking, Sam is noisy. He'd deny it, but he not a restful person. Oh, he can be quiet when he wants to be, when he's focused, or when he's pissed at Dean, but otherwise, no one who takes up as much space as Sam does is silent. He breathes, coughs, burps, and farts on purpose to annoy Dean. He tosses and turns when he sleeps, sometimes crying out in his dreams.

Then there's all the talking Sam does. Narrating their lives, he teases Dean, pontificating all over the place about whatever topic grabs his interest. Dean pretends not to listen once Sam gets going on the lore of something he's just researched, or why Dean is a giant dick, but he knows he's not fooling anyone, least of all Sam.

Dean hates driving in silence. It reminds him too much of the years they were apart, when Sam was at Stanford trying to be someone he had no chance of ever being.

Dean hated that. He wanted - still wants, will always want - Sam to have whatever makes him happy. Dean would give it to him if he could, but he figured out, right about the time that yellow-eyed bastard put Jessica on the ceiling of Sam's apartment, of their _bedroom_, for Chrissake, and burned her alive - Dean realized that Sam could never have the life he wanted, no matter what Dean did or didn't do.

The only thing for Dean to do after that was to keep Sam safe and now he's failed at that, too.

He spends the drive listening so hard for Sam that his ears are ringing with the roar of the Impala's engine.

It feels like they're in the car for hours, alone and so silent Dean can hear himself breathe, but too soon they're at the abandoned cabin where Dean and Bobby have been squatting while they searched for Sam.

Bobby is already there waiting for him. For _them_. Dean doesn't want any help getting Sam out of the car, but he can't do it himself without letting Sam drag on the ground, and his mind recoils from the thought. Sam deserves better than that.

Sam is stiff and it's not easy to move him. Together Dean and Bobby pull him out of the backseat, Dean trying as hard as he can not to lose his grip on Sam's shoulders. He shifts his hands and shoves them under Sam's armpits, but Sam's limbs are bent from being curled up in a space he hasn't fit into comfortably in years. Rigor is making it this almost impossible, making Sam seem even heavier than he is and Dean's mind wants to run screaming from the whole nightmare.

He can't do this.

"Come on, Dean," Bobby says grimly. "We got this." Dean listens to him and grits his teeth. Between them they finally manage to get Sam inside the shack and onto the dirty mattress in the one room that has a bed.

They arrange Sam on his side, same as he was in the car, because they can't get him into any other position. His neck is at an awkward angle but Dean knows in a few hours Sam's body will be pliable again and he can arrange him more comfortably.

He stands at the side of the bed and wills his brother to make a sound, just one more sound. He doesn't want the last noise he ever heard Sammy make to be the breath he lost kneeling in the mud and the rain with Dean's arms tight around him.

*

Dean can't believe how cold Sam is. Sam's usually a furnace, running a few degrees hotter than normal people - a sweaty freak of nature. But now he's cold and lifeless. Dean's been around dead bodies all his life and Sam feels colder than any other body Dean has ever touched.

The very idea of preparing Sam's body for…for anything, for burial, or burning, is enough to make Dean want to get into his car and drive away and never look back.

Dean doesn't want to wash him, to clean the blood from his back, the dirt from his face. He can't imagine stripping Sam's body to do that, to wipe the mud away from his hands or dress him in clean clothes.

His mind shies away from the task and he tries to think of some way he can avoid performing it.

Some way to make it not necessary.

*

~ Dean hadn't unclenched his jaw for the past three hours, and although he barely registered the resultant headache, he did know it was there. His damn neck practically creaked with tension when he turned his head to make sure they weren't being followed.

Other than the headache, Dean felt perfectly fucking fine, which, if Sam hadn't been exaggerating about his condition before, wigged him out a bit. Okay, a hell of a lot. The doctors had told Sam and Dad that Dean was going to die, that there was nothing more they could do for him, and now here he was, just a few hours later, healthy as a damn horse.

Dean wasn't fucking stupid, and he didn't believe in coincidences. He had been dying and now he was fine, and his father was dead.

Didn't take a damn rocket scientist to figure out that yellow-eyed son of a bitch had something to do with it.

Dean tried to push those thoughts away. He'd deal with it later. Right now he had to focus on the weight in his arms, his father's body limp and unyielding between him and Sam. Dean grunted with the effort, his hands slipping and almost losing their grip under John's arms.

"Dean," Sam gasped, clutching John's knees and stumbling in the dark. The old junker Bobby had loaned them was parked up close to the hospital, in the shadows by the unlit loading dock.

"Shit, sorry," Dean muttered, tightening his hands in his father's jacket.

John had been naked in the hospital morgue, laid out on a cold metal tray, hidden away in a dark, refrigerated drawer. Dean had insisted they dress him before they carried him out to the car, and he touched his father's familiar clothing, John's shirt, his jacket, with a sense of loss and panic that almost made him numb in its intensity.

"Sam, a little fucking help here?" Dean had barked, and Sam recoiled in horror when he realized that Dean wanted his help sliding their father's boxers and jeans up his legs and hips. "Sam!"

John's skin was white under the morgue's harsh florescent lighting. There were no marks on his body, save for the small burns on his chest from the defibrillator the doctors had used on him multiple times, to no avail. There was nothing to show how he died, not one fucking sign.

His face was peaceful, his jaw slack. Dark hair stood out on his chest and groin, his pale cock flopped limply against his thigh. Dean's stomach clenched painfully.

"Sam," he said again, this time a plea.

Wordlessly, Sam took hold of one side of John's pants while Dean grabbed the other, and together they tugged and pulled until John was covered. Sam's hands shook uncontrollably and Dean wanted to comfort him, he really did, but he was too goddamn empty.

They maneuvered John's body into the backseat of Bobby's crappy borrowed car, and then they both slid silently into the front. Dean turned the engine over as quietly as he could and crept out of the hospital parking lot with the headlights off.

They drove for an hour, away from the hospital and the town, away from civilization, until Dean found an access road that led them away from the main highway and into what looked like a fairly large acreage of wood. He parked the car, and if the footpath that led into the trees was more imagination than reality, what did it matter? He and Sam bore their father's body between them until they came across an overgrown clearing in the woods.

There was no need for words, no reason for any attempts at conversation to make the task more bearable. Together they gathered wood in the patches of moonlight that penetrated the trees, shining through the branches just enough to light the way.

As he touched his father one last time, Dean kept a tight rein on the tears that threatened to fall. He felt like a goddamn hypocrite, wanting to cry for the man who had been his hero, his commanding officer, and his very foundation for all of his twenty-seven years, when Dean knew exactly why John was dead.

John died for _Dean_, and it didn't matter that Dean didn't want him to, or that he hadn't asked him to do it.

Bobby had given them sheets and Sam and Dean wrapped John's body carefully, struggling with stiff limbs and dead weight.

Dean stared down into his father's face one last time, brushing a lock of hair back off his forehead, trying not to recoil from the coldness of his skin as they covered his face with the sheet. He closed his eyes in brief acknowledgement of the debt he now owed, then he and Sam finished up, finished the last thing they could do for their father.

They gave him a hunter's funeral.

"Did he say anything to you?" Sam asked. "Before he died, did Dad say anything?"

"No."

It didn't matter what John told Dean about Sam, didn't matter that his own father had said Dean might have to kill Sam. Dean would die before he let anything happen to Sam. ~

*

"Sam, Sam, Sam, hey, come on, come here, let me look at you, hey, look, it's not even that bad, it's not even that bad. All right, Sammy, Sam, hey, listen to me, we're gonna patch you up, okay, good as new, I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna take care of you, I gotcha, that's my job, right? Watching out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sammy no, nononononono, oh God."

Sam hears the words echoing in his head over and over. He's trying not to freak out, but really, the only thing that needs to be _patched up_ is this whole out-of-body experience thing. He'd like his body and his…essence, soul, whatever it's called, put back together again, thanks, and the sooner the better.

His body is laid out on the filthiest mattress Sam's ever seen. That's really saying something, considering his life and some of the places he's lived and stayed in over the years.

Sam doesn't like how he looks, kind of pale and mottled. That can't be good. His eyes are closed and Sam can't detect any movement at all, no fluttering eyelids, and if his chest is moving, Sam can't see it. Not even a little.

Moving closer, Sam hovers over his own body and listens for a heartbeat, but he doesn't hear one. When he sits on the edge of the mattress, it really worries him that the mattress doesn't dip under him at all. He seems to be weightless, but he guesses spirits, or souls, or whatever he is don't have much heft to them.

That's what makes him think he can't really be dead. If he was anything like the spirits they've encountered over the years, he should be able to make things move. He should have some sort of substance. Hell, he's gotten knocked around by enough ghosts over the years that he should be able to do all sorts of things, including touch Dean.

Dean.

Dean's sitting at the table, staring sightlessly at some cold pizza, cheese congealed and greasy, disgusting just the way Dean likes it, but he's almost as motionless as the body on the bed.

He keeps cocking his head like he's listening for something. When he doesn't seem to hear it, he closes his eyes, and Sam is shaken to the core by the grief on Dean's face.

*

Bobby decides he could do with a few hours of sleep and he's tactful enough to do it in his car. He takes a last sad look at Sam's body, lying on the bed so still and motionless, before he goes. Dean doesn't meet his eyes; he can't bear the grief and pity he knows he'll see there. He isn't ready to accept that Sam is really gone.

Dean holds himself rigid until he hears Bobby's car door slam shut, and even then his shoulders stay tight, his neck stiff. He has no idea what to do with himself now that he's alone with his brother's body, even though all he wanted five minutes ago was for Bobby to leave them the hell alone.

Turning around, looking around the ramshackle cabin, Dean freezes when he sees moonlight coming in through the dirty window behind the bed. It shines on Sam and the leaves on the trees outside dance in the cold night breeze, making patterns of light shift on Sam's face.

It almost seems like Sam is alive, as if his face is animated. Like he's Dean's living, breathing brother again. Dean stands transfixed, watching the play of light and shadows, imagining Sam's smile, his frown, all the different facial expressions that Dean is so intimately familiar with.

"Sam? Sammy," he breathes.

There's no recognition in Sam's face, no sign that he heard Dean, just the random movement of light.

*

Sam watches as Bobby goes out to his car to get some sleep. He'll be back, there's no way he'd leave Dean alone for long. Sam can count on Bobby.

Dean just stands there and it seems like hours before he moves. "Sammy," he whispers. His face is in shadow and Sam can't see it. He moves around until he's facing Dean, and he feels actual physical pain at the desolation on Dean's face. It's sharp and unexpected, completely corporeal, and it catches him by surprise.

He doesn't know what to do for Dean.

Something flickers in the moonlight; something Sam only catches in his peripheral vision and it's gone when he turns his head to really look. It makes him uneasy, but it stays gone so Sam pushes it aside to concentrate on Dean.

Dean shudders suddenly and his whole body goes slack. He sinks to his knees, head bowed, fists clenched on his thighs, his knuckles white. His shoulders shake but he's not crying. It's more like he has a fever, as if he's reacting physically to everything that's happened tonight.

Sam wants nothing more than to reach out and touch his brother, but he doesn't know if he should try. What if he makes things worse? What if he can't do it?

He moves anyway, reaches out for Dean, and his fingertips brush Dean's shoulder before he jerks his hand back as if it's been burned. This is not a good idea.

Dean doesn't seem to feel Sam's hand and that's all fucking wrong. Sam crosses his arms over his chest and tucks his hands into his armpits, trembling with the effort to keep still. But Dean's grief-ravaged face is too much, and Sam reaches out to touch his brother again.

Sam lets his hand linger on Dean's shoulder, a firm touch, almost a clasp, and suddenly, Dean stills. The shakes racking his body ease, and his face softens, slackens, even. Sam watches his eyelids droop, and then Dean tenses again, shakes his head as if he's trying to shake water out of his ears.

"Fuck."

Slowly, moving like he's a hundred years old, Dean straightens up and gets to his feet. He looks around the room, at the battered wooden table and beat-up chairs, at the bare wooden floors, at the only bed.

His eyes linger on Sam's body for a moment, and then he tears his gaze away and strips off his jacket, wadding it up and stiffly lowering himself to the floor next to the bed. Sam puts his hand on Dean's shoulder again and feels Dean's tense muscles slowly relax.

Dean curls up on his side, tucking both fists under his chin, his head resting on his jacket. Sam doesn't relinquish his grasp on his brother, finding it easy to sit on the floor next to him and ignore the body on the bed.

"Sleep," Sam whispers, and Dean's eyes close. The moonlight dances on his face.

*

~ The moon was full, glowing orange low in the sky. It was just past dusk, and Dean moved silently through the woods behind his father. He was sixteen years old and they were hunting a werewolf.

Sam was back at the motel with strict instructions to keep the doors and windows salted and locked, and to stay awake and on guard until they got back. Dean knew Sam would be fine, safe and sound and certainly not stupid.

In fact, Sam had made that point quite vociferously before they'd gone out, not wanting to be left behind.

"I'm not stupid, Dad. I can do this." He'd been making no secret of the fact that he was starting to hate being left behind when Dean and John went out looking for things to kill. He was pretty serious in his affronted indignation, and Dean smiled to himself. It was cute, it really was, but there was no way Dean was going to let his skinny twelve-year-old brother tromp through the woods with a pack of werewolves hanging around looking for dinner. He didn't care how ready Sam thought he was.

Dad hadn't even considered it. "No way, Sam. Just stay the hell put and do what you're told."

Sometimes Dean suspected Sam had no real desire to hunt, just the twin desires to both argue with his father and not be left behind.

The hunt turned out to be a relatively easy one, enough that John was generous with his praise, telling Dean he'd done a good job. Dean treasured those times, took those words and stored them against the days his father wasn't so charitable. When they got back to the motel he wasn't even annoyed by the sullen face Sam greeted them with.

"Sammy, it was awesome!" He smiled down at his little brother. "Someday, dude, someday you'll be out there with us." The idea made him smile bigger, as he pictured the three Winchester men together, hunting evil and keeping folks safe.

Sam frowned in irritation, with the line between his eyes that Dean wanted to brush his thumb across and smooth out.

"C'mon, twerp," Dean said, looking back at his father, eyebrows raised in a question. John hesitated, and then nodded.

Dean grinned. "Let's go." He pulled open the door, grabbed Sam's wrist and towed him outside. There was a crumbling cement planter between the motel and the parking lot, flowers long dead, filled with dirt and cigarette butts and empty cans. Dean sat down on the edge of it and gestured for Sam to sit, too.

Sam did so grudgingly, reluctantly. He seemed to stop himself just short of folding his arms petulantly across his chest, settling instead for kicking his heels back against the concrete.

"It was awesome, Sammy," Dean said again. He described the hunt in detail, playing up his own role the way Sam expected him to, and soon enough, Sam got caught up in the story and the sulky look on his face gave way to curiosity and admiration.

The moon was high in the sky when Sam yawned, and Dean said, "Hey, I'm beat. Killing werewolves is hard work, dude. Let's hit the sack." ~

*

Sam keeps watch while Dean sleeps. Dean's restless, his eyes moving rapidly behind his lids, his hands twitching, fingers clenching. He lets out an occasional soft, distressed murmur, _no, Sammy, no_ and Sam's eyes fill with sympathetic tears.

Looking around the run-down cabin, Sam realizes this is where Dean and Bobby must have been staying while they looked for him. He guesses Andy's mind mojo had worked, letting Dean know where they were. Sam would have paid good money to see Dean's face when he realized he was having a vision.

The idea makes Sam smile and he's sorry he missed it.

This cabin is out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and it feels almost as desolate here as at Cold Oak. There's rain and mud everywhere. Wind whistles through small cracks in the walls, makes its way in around the spaces where the rotted wood is coming away from the smudged windows.

There are shadows everywhere. They move over the walls in the moonlight, filling up the corners of the shack. Sometimes Sam thinks he sees a darker shape moving around the room. It's still right at the edge of his vision and he still can't pin it down. The back of his neck prickles.

Sam moves to the window and watches Bobby asleep in his car. Bobby's head is pressed against the window and his cap sits askew, making him look oddly vulnerable. That bothers Sam. Bobby has to be strong for Dean, in case…well, Sam has kind of figured out that he's dead. He's not sure why he's still hanging around, but he's determined to stay here as long as he possibly can.

He feels pretty fatalistic about it, for some reason. It's no good railing against death; it seems irreversible. He hates that he died with unfinished business, but he trusts that Dean will finish it for them.

But Dean, Dean's not going to handle the fact that Sam is dead well at all. In fact, he's going to be inconsolable at first, and Bobby needs to be strong for him, that's all there is to it.

Dean stirs, shifting awkwardly on the floor next to the bed. He looks uncomfortable and Sam wishes he could wake him up, get him to at least bring in the ragged old army blanket they keep in the back seat of the Impala, maybe fashion a bed out of it for himself.

But Sam doesn't know how he'd do that. He doesn't know how to make his presence known, or even if he should. How would Dean react if he knew Sam's spirit was hanging around?

Not well, if Sam knows his brother. He doesn't want to freak Dean out.

Sam shifts restlessly. He wonders if he'll be able to sleep now that he's a ghost. It's not that he's tired, but it would help pass the time.

He doesn't know what else to do, so Sam drifts around the cabin and watches over his brother.

*

~ Sam looked up at Dean's face, seeing nothing but sympathy there. He was still embarrassed about his tears, and he swallowed hard, trying to stop them. It was just a cut, he told himself; a little, stupid cut. Nothing to cry about.

Dean gently swiped the alcohol-soaked gauze along the gash on Sam's thigh. It wasn't too deep, really. Dad didn't think it needed stitches, but it was about six inches long and it hurt. Sam gritted his teeth against the sting of the alcohol, and shivered in reaction to the pain. Tears slipped down his cheeks, but he didn't allow himself the indignity of sniffing.

He knew Dad was just waiting for Dean to finish cleaning the wound before he started in on Sam. He could hear it already, knew exactly what Dad was going to say before he said it.

_Gonna have to do better than that, Sam. You can't turn your back on a ghost, son. You might think it was gone, but salt won't make 'em go away for good. They always come back and you need to be alert. Can't have you getting hurt. You need to pay more attention to what you're doing._

Like Sam didn't know all that already. Didn't Dad understand that Sam felt stupid enough as it was, he didn't need to hammer the point home?

Sam sighed and wiped the last of the tears away with the back of his hand. Dean tore a piece of adhesive tape off the roll with his teeth and smiled down at Sam as he fastened the bandage in place on Sam's leg. He gripped Sam's shoulder and gave it a slight shake.

"All done, Sammy." Sam nodded his thanks and stood up, reaching for his jeans. They had a tear in them that matched the one on his leg, but he only had one other pair and he wasn't sure where they even were. Shrugging, he pulled the ripped jeans back on, and then noticed that they were alone in the motel room.

"Where's Dad," he asked. Sam couldn't be that lucky, that Dad would just leave it alone.

"He went for hamburgers," Dean said. "Hunting ghosts makes me hungry," he added with a smirk. Then his face changed, his expression serious. "You know, Sammy, you need to be more careful. You can't turn your back on a ghost."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Dean, I know." ~

 

*

Slowly, Dean blinks awake. His neck is stiff; his back twisted and bent. He has no idea where he is, but whatever he's lying on is hard as hell.

The floor. He's on the floor, and oh, fuck. Panic fills him and he sits up too quickly, blood rushing from his head, leaving his brain fuzzy. Spots dance around the edges of his vision and he closes his eyes again.

Sam.

Dean doesn't turn his head to look at the bed next to him. Sam is there, stretched out and cold. Lifeless. Everything that happened suddenly catches up with Dean and he turns his head, wrenches himself to his knees and throws up, vomit spattering on the floor between his hands.

Dean thinks maybe he'll never stop puking and his stomach heaves against the truth screaming in his head.

Sam is dead.

Dean spits and gags. His nose runs and there are tears on his face.

Eventually, his stomach long empty, Dean sits back on his haunches and leans his shoulder against the bed. He doesn't look; he can't look at what's on it, at who's lying there dead. He squeezes his eyes closed and wipes his nose on his shirtsleeve.

There's a sudden warmth against the back of Dean's neck, familiar and almost soothing. It makes him look over at Sam in spite of himself, in spite of his best efforts.

"Sammy," Dean says in a hoarse whisper. His throat is wrecked, raw and painful. He doesn't want to cry, doesn't want to lose control like that. He's afraid if he does he won't be able to stop, but it feels like part of his soul has been torn away from him. He feels hollow and emptied out.

Sam's not here anymore, and half of Dean is missing.

He's crying and he doesn't even realize it until he hears ragged sobbing and knows it's coming from him. Dean gives up then, lets the sobs take him, carry him away, until he's somewhere else entirely.

*

~ Dean may only be four years old, but he understands that Daddy crying is something that's not supposed to be mentioned. Dean's not talking much anyway; there's no point in saying anything if Mommy's not there to hear him. But even if he felt like talking, he wouldn't tell his Daddy not to cry so much.

Daddy thinks he's hiding. He thinks Dean can't hear him at night, can't see his red eyes in the morning. The way he sometimes just sits, Baby Sammy on his lap, and stares at things Dean can't see.

So he can't tell his father not to cry, because when Daddy cries, it's a secret. But Dean has a secret, too.

Mommy always said there were angels looking out for him, and Dean knows that someday, angels are going to make everything all better, and then Daddy won't cry anymore. ~

*

Sam puts his hand on the back of Dean's neck, gripping it as tightly as he can. He thinks Dean can feel him, thinks he's at least aware of Sam's touch even if he doesn't know what it is.

He keeps his hand in place while Dean cries, even though he's distracted by something, something he can still only get a glimpse of out of the corner of his eye.

Finally, Dean falls asleep again, exhausted by grief, and Sam turns his attention to the rest of the cabin.

Sam keeps seeing movement. He sees a dark shape that hides in the corners, slips past the window, moves across the floor. It's always on the edge of his sightline and he can never actually see what it is, no matter how quickly he turns his head to catch it.

It's silent, slipping past him like a shadow, and it's damned distracting. Dean sits huddled on the floor, weeping. Sam's heart is breaking and he wants to know what the hell is in this cabin with them.

"Dammit," he growls, looking furiously around the room. "Goddammit, show yourself! Let me see you!"

He turns around and there, standing in front of him, is a pretty girl with smooth dark hair and the most serene expression Sam has ever seen. She smiles softly at him.

"Who are you?" he asks, her sudden appearance causing a flicker of anger to spark under his skin. "What are you?"

"I'm a reaper, Sam. I've come to collect you." Her tone is certain, absolute, and Sam instinctively takes a step back.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "No way." He looks over at Dean, certain he can't leave him alone to deal with so much grief and regret.

The girl tilts her head to one side and regards him with interest. She doesn't seem to be surprised by his answer. "Your time here is over, Sam. You need to accept that and move on."

"No," Sam says again with absolute certainty. "Dean needs me to stay here."

"He won't know you're here, Sam. What would be the point of staying?" Her voice is soft, soothing, almost mesmerizing.

"Look at him," Sam says, pointing furiously at his brother. "I can't leave him here like this."

"You can't take him with you, either, Sam. Not now. Once before, or after, in another time – " she stops, and Sam waits, but all she does is shake her head ruefully. "Not this time."

Sam has no idea what she's talking about, and he really doesn't care. Dean is devastated, too broken for Sam to leave him behind. He's left before, but this time he won't. He can't.

"You have a choice, Sam," the girl says. "You can stay with him, but Sam, think about what that will mean. He'll never be without you, but he won't know that. He may sense that you're here, but he'll never know for sure. You'll have to watch him grieve for you, and you won't be able to do anything about it. You'll be a ghost, a thing that Dean would hunt if he could. Most spirits are confined to a place, but you would be bound to a person."

She tilts her head and looks at him, an unreadable expression on her face. "You and Dean are different, Sam," she says, and Sam has no idea what she's talking about. "Dean will age, and then he'll die and move on, and you'll be without him, because once you make this decision, Sam, you can't change your mind. You can't go back and fix it the way you want it. This is forever." There's something in her voice that makes Sam think she's lying, but her eyes are guileless.

"I don't care." Sam doesn't even have to think about it. He can't leave Dean again. "I won't go with you."

The girl studies him, her gaze somber. She's not like any reaper Sam ever imagined, certainly not like that wrinkled old guy Dean saw in Nebraska. She tilts her head, raising one perfect eyebrow.

"It's your choice. It's not the way it's supposed to be, but I can't force you." She smiles gently. "Well, I can, but I won't." She turns and walks a few feet away then pauses, staring out the window at the night sky while she waits for him to decide.

Sam doesn't hesitate. He's sure about this, more sure than he's ever been in his life. He won't become something Dean wanted to hunt. Sam's not a monster and Dean won't let him become one. Sam has faith.

"I'm staying."

The reaper turns to look at him over her shoulder. "If you're sure?"

Sam nods. "I'm sure."

She stares at him a moment more, and then she's gone.

Sam feels relief and almost overwhelming terror at the same time.

"Dean," he says. "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere." He's not sure if he's offering reassurance or seeking it.

There's no response from his brother, but Sam hadn't expected one. He tries not to panic as he watches Dean, overwhelmed by grief and oblivious to Sam's presence.

And he thinks about the decision he just made.

*

Dean wakes with a start, sitting up so fast that he almost knocks his head on the bed he's sprawled next to. He's disoriented for a moment, trying to figure out where the hell he is, and then it all comes crashing back in on him.

He fell asleep on the floor next to the bed where Sam's body is laid. Sam is dead. The knowledge sweeps through him with a devastation that takes his breath away. He tastes the sharp metallic edge of his adrenaline rush in the back of his throat and he almost chokes on it.

Rolling to his side, Dean pushes himself to his hands and knees. His head hangs down between his arms and he makes himself take slow, steady breaths. He breathes in the smell of vomit and clamps down on the urge to gag.

He keeps his head turned away from the bed.

Dean has no idea how long it takes, but eventually he manages to stagger to his feet. He sways in place, closing his eyes against the momentary head rush.

Grabbing his duffle out of the corner where he threw it earlier, he pulls a t-shirt out at random and quickly swipes it through the half-dried vomit on the floor.

The abandoned shack they've been squatting in comes without the amenities of indoor plumbing and Dean has to piss, so he makes his way outside. He tosses the dirty t-shirt away as he heads toward the nearby woods.

The night air is cool and sharp, and it clears his head. He sees Bobby asleep in his car, so he wanders a dozen yards away from the cabin, unzipping his jeans as he walks. It's a sign of how exhausted they are that Bobby sleeps through the noise of Dean shuffling around in the dried leaves and dead branches that litter the ground surrounding the cabin.

Not that Dean is particularly noisy. One of the first things Dad taught him when he was little, before Dean even knew why they lived the way they did, was to move as silently as possible, regardless of where he was or what he was doing.

*

~ Dad said they were going camping. Dean didn't know what that meant; he'd never been camping before, but he was excited. Going camping seemed to make Dad less mad, so that made Dean feel lighter, and that heavy feeling in his chest that was always there got a little better.

At first, camping didn't seem to be much different from what they usually did, which was drive a lot. Sometimes at night they stayed in a motel and Dean really liked that. There was usually an ice machine and Dean loved the sound the ice made when it tumbled down into the plastic ice buckets that were in the rooms. He was in charge of getting ice whenever they stayed in a motel and Dad said it was an important job.

Dean's chest swelled with pride whenever Dad put an ice bucket in his hands and said, "Okay, Dean, I need you to go get ice. Look at the map and find the ice machine. Then see how fast you can make it back here."

And Dean would squint up at the small map on the back of the motel room door until he could see the word that Dad said meant ice. ICE. He knew those letters, just like he knew the letters that spelled his name. DEAN.

Then he'd dash out the door, picturing the map in his head, looking around and trying to figure out if the numbers and squares on the map meant to turn here at this corner, or down there by the railing. It was always easy to find the ice if there was a Coke machine nearby, because that's where the ice was, and Coke machines were easy to hear, humming loudly in the silence of the late afternoon.

If he got back to the room with the ice really fast, Dad would pat him on the shoulder and say, "Good job, buddy." Dean liked that part the best.

Anyway, camping didn't seem to have ice machines. They didn't sleep in motels when they camped; they slept on the side of the road, tucked back away from the highway in a bunch of trees, or sometimes deep in the woods next to a stream. Dad had a small tent, just big enough for Dean and Sammy to sleep in, and Dad slept in a sleeping bag right outside the tent.

Sometimes Dean asked if he could sleep outside, too, but Dad always said, no, Dean had to sleep inside to make sure Sammy was okay, in case he woke up and stuff. So Dean would take one last look up at the star-filled sky and say, "Night, Dad," and duck into the tent to watch over his little brother.

During the day, while Sammy took a nap on the scratchy old green blanket Dad kept in the trunk of the car, Dad would show Dean how to walk around in the grass without stepping on any twigs, and how to step real quiet on the leaves when they turned orange and red and fell down out of the trees.

Sometimes Sam would wake up and Dad would carry him around on his shoulders while he and Dean practiced walking real quiet, or Sam would sit and play with his stuffed bear while Dad showed Dean how to make a fire and cook stuff.

Dean liked it okay, and Dad smiled more when they were in the woods, but sometimes he missed the ice machines. ~

*

Dean pauses with his hand on the cabin door. He doesn't want to go back in there, can't bear the thought of what's inside.

But he can't leave Sammy alone in there. He has to watch out for him, watch over him. It's his job.

Straightening his shoulders, Dean pushes the door open and goes inside. He's immediately struck by how different it feels. It's warmer, for one, although that could just be the difference coming in from the cold night air. But it had been damp and chilly in here before and now the air feels softer, warmer somehow.

Dean raises his head, sniffing. He swears he smells…well, it smells almost like Sam's aftershave. Old Spice, because it's cheap and it's what Dad used, what they used when they'd started shaving, because it was there.

And that's impossible. He must be imagining things. Sam's dead, and he sure as hell hadn't shaved since he'd been dragged off to Cold Oak, and Dean's shit is still in his bag, because he sure as hell hasn't worried about shaving since Sam disappeared, and maybe Dean is losing his mind.

"Sammy?" he whispers. It feels like the air around him moves, just a little, a soft, warm caress and Dean shivers. He shakes his head to clear it. This isn't the time to lose his grip on reality.

Although, truth be told, if this isn't the time, Dean doesn't know when would be. Reality is more than he can deal with right this minute and the temptation to sink into some kind of despair-soaked fantasy is almost overwhelming for a minute.

He decides an excellent alternative to that is a whiskey-soaked stupor and he reaches for the bottle of Jack on the battered table by the window. Tipping his head back, he ignores the fact that the smell of Old Spice is stronger than ever. He lets the taste of the whiskey override everything.

Dean doesn't fall sleep, not really, but he lets the whiskey tug him down, allows himself to drift for a while. He sits at the table, arms folded next to the greasy pizza box, with his head tucked into his elbow as he dozes.

*

Sam is inordinately pleased with himself. It may not count as a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but he managed to move things around in his duffle bag enough to spill some of his aftershave.

He can see Dean relax as soon as he notices it and although he wishes Dean wouldn't take refuge in the seemingly bottomless bottle of whiskey, he's content to watch as his brother dozes at the table.

All he needs to do is practice and soon he'll be communicating with Dean with no problem.

*

Dean doesn't know how long he drifts in and out of consciousness, but his neck becomes increasingly painful from his twisted position. Finally he raises his head, eyes bleary and crusted over with weariness.

It's close to dawn. There's a faint light coming in through the tattered curtains at the window, almost imperceptible, but there nonetheless. It's chilly again inside the cabin, which Dean's brain helpfully points out is a good thing. There's a dead body in here to keep cool, after all.

Dean gets to his feet abruptly, shoving the chair back and away from the table. The smell of cold pizza assaults his nostrils, and he swallows down a gag, choking on the stench of coagulated cheese and bright orange pepperoni grease.

He's gotta piss again, so he opens the door of the cabin, listening to it creak in the silence of the early morning. It's early enough that the birds are still silent, but the smell of rain is in the air and Dean knows that when the mist lifts, it'll be damp and unpleasant.

Dean's been all over the county during the course of his life, and he knows every place has its good and bad points. No place is perfect, and no place is all bad, but he swears, right now, that if he never comes back to this part of South Dakota again, it'll be too soon. He's never been anywhere as unpleasant as this goddamn miserable bit of real estate.

Bobby's awake, climbing stiffly out of his car, nodding to Dean as he heads off to his own tree to take care of his morning business. Dean waits by Bobby's car until comes out of the woods, studying Dean's face thoughtfully.

"I'm gonna head out for a bit, check on a few things, maybe pick up some food. You boys –" Bobby stops, blinks, swallows, and doesn't say anything else for a minute.

Dean thinks he hears a quiet snort, and he's instantly livid at Bobby even as he knows it wasn't Bobby's laughter he heard. Bobby gives no sign of having heard anything out of the ordinary.

"Shit," Bobby says, looking chagrined. "You gonna be all right here for a few hours, son?" There's a slight emphasis on the _you_.

Dean jerks his head in acknowledgment, barely paying attention. He's straining, trying to hear that laugh again, the one he would know anywhere. Sam's laugh.

*

~ "Quit it, you big loser," Sam whined, trying and failing to grab the slice of pizza Dean was holding just out of arm's reach.

"Who's the loser, Sammy? Sure ain't me," Dean teased, twisting to avoid Sam's grasp.

"Come on, Dean, quit it." Sam was trying to use his _I'm really serious_ voice, which Dean thought one day might actually be impressive enough to work. Sammy had all the makings of an impressive persuader, all pleading eyes and sincere smile.

Today was not that day, however. Dean was honor bound, as a big brother, not to give in to Sam too easily. Let the kid struggle for a while. It would build character.

"You're such a jerk, Dean," Sam said in disgust. He kicked out half-heartedly at Dean, toe of his ratty sneakers glancing off Dean's shin. Little fucker.

Dean snorted, letting his guard down slightly. "You kick like a girl, Samantha," he smirked.

"Well, this girl's gonna kick your ass if you don't give me some pizza," Sam snarled.

"Ooh, I'm scared," Dean said, grinning down at his brother's furious face.

"You should be," Sam responded, and then he made a move toward the pizza in Dean's left hand, quickly feinted right, then left again and somehow he ended up in possession of the pizza, pepperoni sliding off on a thread of stringy cheese.

Dean wiped his greasy fingers off on the seat of his jeans, cocking his head at Sam. "Pretty good moves you got there, squirt."

Sam laughed, inordinately pleased with himself, and Dean was happy enough to hear it that he didn't even try to grab the pizza back out of his brother's hand.

"Bitch," he said fondly.

"Jerk," Sam smiled around a mouthful of food. ~

*

Sam watches as Dean looks hopelessly around after Bobby leaves, heart clenching at the expression on his face. Dean looks so lost, and Sam's more determined than ever not only to stay with him, but to try and do a better job of letting Dean know he's here.

He remembers that time in the hospital after the wreck, and how he knew Dean was there. Part of it was that Dean managed to break a water glass, but mostly Sam thinks he just somehow sensed his presence. That was why he'd gone out and gotten a Ouija board to try his hand at communicating with Dean.

Sam needs to get better at moving things. He had freaky mind powers when he was alive, powers that apparently made him important to Yellow Eyes. They all had powers, he and the other children like him. Sam takes a moment to mourn for Ava and Andy, all of the ones who got caught up in the demon's plans. Even Jake. He knows Jake didn't go looking to be dragged to Cold Oak for some Clash of the Titans thing any more than the rest of them did.

He wants to be angry that Jake won the "contest" and that he's still alive, but Sam knows he needs to focus on Dean right now. The rest of it doesn't matter, it's beyond him to fix. Dean is the only thing that matters.

Sam doesn't think he can stand to spend the rest of Dean's natural life being close to his brother and yet unable to touch him. That would be torture and he needs to learn how to touch things.

He ignores the voice in his head that asks if Dean _wants_ to be touched by a ghost, even the ghost of his little brother.

Sam hungers for that touch, he always has, and he's never had enough of it. He's had to be careful over the years, learning to respect Dean's boundaries, which are many, always changing, and extremely tricky to negotiate.

He'll adapt to Dean, the way he's always done. No problem.

*

~ It took Sam a while to hit enough of a growth spurt to approach Dean's height. He went through puberty and then pretty much stayed the same height for another year. His frame was slight but his hands and feet were big enough that Sam secretly thought one day he'd be taller than Dean.

They used to touch all the time, whether Dean was teasing and rough-housing, getting Sam in a headlock and refusing to let him go until Sam promised to let him have the last can of soda in the refrigerator, or shoving him over and stealing the covers on those occasions when they needed to share a bed.

And then one bright summer morning after Sam's fourteenth birthday, Sam kissed him. And Dean stopped touching him unless he absolutely had to and Sam began to wonder if he had some kind of contagious disease, or, after a while, if Dean really was angry about the kiss in spite of his reassurances at the time that it was fine, but it wasn't going to happen again.

Sam had respected that. He discovered that he had great reserves of patience when it came to Dean, and he could bide his time.

Dean got a look in his eye like a deer stuck in the Impala's headlights, like Sam had seen that one time when they were driving down some back road late at night and a doe and her fawn had crossed the road in front of them. Sam never forgot how they stood frozen in place, and he'd never forgiven his father for hitting the fawn, although logically he knew it wasn't John's fault.

The little body had gone flying through the air and the doe had skittered off into the woods while her baby thumped onto the shoulder of the road and lay still and broken, its eyes blank in the moonlight.

The whole gruesome tableau had stayed with Sam for years, stuck in his memories, showing up in his nightmares whenever he was particularly angry at his father.

And that expression of frozen terror was what he saw on his brother's face whenever Sam got too close. Sam started deliberately brushing his arm across Dean's when he reached past him for the ketchup while they ate, or bumping his shoulder into Dean's when they tramped side by side through the woods, following along behind their father while he taught them the art of tracking.

Dean would seem to lean into Sam's touch until he realized what he was doing, and then he'd jerk away with a look of fearful guilt. Sam had some idea of what was going through his brother's thick head, but he still got angry at the feeling of rejection.

Dean got angry right back, and they spent almost the entire summer and early fall when Sam was fourteen barely speaking, exchanging hostile glances and belligerent shoves until John lit into them both, telling them he'd had enough and to knock it off or there would be hell to pay.

Dean had immediately knuckled under to John's demands after the big tirade, as usual, and Sam had watched resentfully as his brother ceased open hostilities but became almost a stranger instead.

Gone was their usual comfortable camaraderie, replaced by stiff interactions and stilted conversations, the distance between them seemingly impossible to bridge. Sometimes Dean forgot to keep his distance, and he never stopped looking after Sam, but mostly Dean was distracted and Sam was miserable.

Sam had a major growth spurt that summer, and by the time he caught up to Dean in height, he was so starved for his brother's touch he would have done almost anything to get it.

Turned out, all that was needed was a hot Indian summer afternoon in the middle of Indiana and some stolen hours to spend at an abandoned stone quarry swimming hole.

Standing there with the sun sparkling on the water, Sam was self-conscious about stripping down to his boxers to swim. It was a strange combination of feeling awkward about his newly acquired height, which when he studied himself critically in the bathroom mirror, only seemed to emphasize his lack of muscles, and a need he couldn't explain to have Dean look at him as something other than a little kid.

To _see_ him.

Sam hesitated, then pulled his shirt up over his head and tossed it on the warm grass at his feet. He didn't look at Dean, just fumbled with the top button of his jeans, his suddenly sweaty fingers making it hard to get open.

It was stupid. The three of them lived in each other's pockets, especially him and Dean, with almost no privacy to speak of. They saw each other in various stages of undress all the time without ever giving it a second thought. Sam had no idea why he felt so weird all of a sudden, but he felt the same way he did when his hormones got the better of him and he had to lock himself in the bathroom and jerk off at the most unexpected and inconvenient times.

Going through puberty with a father and an older brother breathing down his neck wasn't exactly Sam's idea of a good time, even if Dean was there to answer any questions Sam might have had. Or he would have been, if Sam had even been able to contemplate asking him anything without first dying of embarrassment.

Beside him, Dean undressed with the same carelessness he always did and Sam envied him for his self-confidence. He tried not to stare as Dean slid his jeans down his legs, kicking them off along with his boxers, but it was hard not to. Dean's sun-dappled skin glowed golden and the freckles sprinkled liberally across his shoulder held Sam in thrall. A cool breeze rustled through the trees, making goose bumps rise on Dean's shoulders. Sam wanted to taste them.

"Last one in cleans the guns," Dean shouted, turning to grin at Sam. Sam saw Dean's smile falter for a moment as his eyes raked up and down Sam's body, and then he reached out a slow hand and trailed his fingers down Sam's chest, the barest touch; making Sam shiver, his face hot.

"Looking good there, Sammy." Then Dean snatched his fingers away as if they'd been burned, the tips of his ears as red as Sam imagined his own face to be. "Come on, race ya!"

Dean turned and ran across the rocks, sun gleaming on his skin, and Sam knew very well where the rush of heat in his blood was coming from.

Dean jumped into the water, surfacing with a sputter. "Jesus Christ that's cold!" he whooped. "Get your ass in here, Sammy!"

It was as much a threat as a suggestion and Sam knew it. Resigning himself to the sudden shock, he leaped into the quarry, his breath catching in his throat as the icy water closed over his head.

Rock formations towered above them. The water was cold and still and Sam figured the swimming hole was spring-fed. He swam toward Dean, his teeth chattering already. Laughing, he splashed Dean right in the face.

"Oh, dude, you're so dead," Dean shouted. "It is so on!"

"Bring it," Sam sang back, as he dove under the water, kicking hard.

Sam was a good swimmer, but he was no match for Dean. A hand closed around his ankle, tugging him backwards, and then Dean's arms circled Sam's waist, bringing them chest-to-chest.

They both stilled and Dean looked at Sam warily. Throwing caution to the wind, Sam leaned forward and kissed Dean. His lips were cool and slick, motionless under Sam's.

Sam pulled back nervously and said, "I've been wanting to do that again since Alabama." Sam absolutely did not let his voice waver.

There was a moment when it could have gone either way and Sam pretty much stopped breathing entirely. Then Dean's eyes softened and he smiled ruefully. "Dude," he said, and leaned in to kiss Sam back.

When their afternoon swim ended, with Dean's hand on his cock and the other around his waist, holding him up so he didn't drown while he was having the most incredible orgasm of his life, Dean not wanting to touch him was no longer a problem. ~

*

The need to touch Dean, to reassure him, is overwhelming. Sam paces, filled with fury at his impotence. He focuses his rage, concentrating on the door of the cabin, and suddenly, with a final grunt of effort from Sam, the door closes sharply.

He's grimly pleased with himself; especially when he sees Dean jump and look back at the closed door with a puzzled expression. There's time, they have plenty of time for Sam to get good at this, to get good enough at it that he can let Dean know he's there.

To show him that Sam's not going anywhere, that he's not going to leave Dean alone ever again.

Dean pulls the door of the cabin open, staring down at the doorknob in his hand, then shakes his head and closes it again. He wanders over to the table and reaches for the bottle of whiskey, and Sam feels a spike of frustration.

"Damn it, Dean. I'm here," he says. "I'm right here."

*

Sam stands in the early morning shadows that hide the corners of the cabin, watching his brother. Dean's been working on the bottle of Jack pretty steadily since Bobby left. Sam hopes Bobby gets back here with some food sooner rather than later or Dean's going to be passed out drunk at ass o'clock in the morning.

_The morning after I died,_ Sam thinks, and he shivers. Obviously he knew things could end this way; he's known that all his life. He hasn't felt safe since he turned nine and found out what his father did when he left his sons to fend for themselves in run-down hotel rooms across America.

When he was little, he used to lie awake at night and wonder what it would be like to be dead. Eaten by a monster, lost forever, away from his brother and his father. He'd wake up shuddering in fear but Dean was always there to make him feel safe, at least until the next night when it was too quiet, with only John's snores to fill the silence while they slept.

Over the years he'd stopped thinking about it, mostly. That didn't mean the fear went away, but he'd learned how to push it to the back of his mind, to squash it down whenever it tried to take over. His father always said that it was smart to be scared but stupid to let fear control you.

But he'd never honestly considered that he might die before they found and killed the demon that had taken so much away from them. He's surprised, but more than anything, he's becoming increasingly angry. Anger that burns bright, but that he has no idea what to do with.

This must be how vengeful spirits are born, Sam thinks. People who die angry, with no one on whom to wreak their vengeance except the living who are left behind.

*

Dean carelessly lets the bottle of whiskey hit the table, although he's not careless enough to let it tip over. He wants to drink away the consciousness of this awful day but there's not enough booze in the world to erase the knowledge that Sam is laid out on the bed in the other room, dead.

The morning sun casts shadows around the cabin but Dean's not looking for things that hide in dark corners. He's beyond that. His mind is numb with grief and alcohol, and a wave of dizziness washes over him when he stands up.

When his head clears, he stands stock-still, suddenly having the oddest feeling that he's not alone. That strikes him as ridiculous, because he's never been more alone in his life.

There's something in the cabin with him, or maybe he just wishes there were. It's almost comforting. It feels warm and alive, everything Sam isn't, but it feels like Sam all the same. Dean peers around the room, but there's nothing to see.

"Sam?"

Dean swears there's a kind of rippling effect in one corner of the room. The darkness shimmers for a moment and then it's gone. It leaves him with a feeling of peace, while at the same time it causes a longing in his soul so deep he gasps with the intensity of it.

"Sam."

*

~ Dean felt a shiver of pride as he and Sammy moved quietly through the dense forest. He wanted to show off, show Sam what he could do, and he thought he might get the chance tonight.

Sam hadn't been on very many hunts yet, and most of the time when he went with them, Dad didn't let him do much. Dean had been hunting since he was in the sixth grade, but Dad had been less eager to take Sam along that young.

Sam seemed both relieved and annoyed by that. He hated being left out. Sometimes he acted like Dean and John purposefully excluded him from anything important, while still expecting him to train and research and do all the things Dean did.

On the other hand, Sam was clear that he had important things to do and hunting was a real imposition on his busy life as an eighth grader.

It was actually pretty funny most of the time, except for when Sam and Dad were butting heads over how Dad's demands interfered with Sam's social and academic schedule. Then it got loud and Dean was expected to pick a side. How they expected him to do that when they both acted like it was a betrayal of the highest order if Dean picked the wrong one, Dean didn't know.

As far as he was concerned, there were no sides. He didn't want to have to choose between them and sometimes they made him so damned mad he wanted to walk away and let them fight it out on their own. They could sort their own shit out just fine without his help.

But his job was to do whatever he had to in order for the three of them to function as a unit. If he didn't do that, someone could get hurt.

Sam could get hurt and that was unthinkable.

They were in the woods, hunting a black dog that had been terrorizing a small town in Idaho. Dean slipped through the woods as silently as he could, circling in one direction while his father circled around the other.

Sam was behind him and John had ordered him to stay glued to Dean's back, to watch and learn and keep his mouth shut.

The moon shone through the trees, whose branches stirred in a slight breeze. Suddenly, there was a roar and something came crashing through the undergrowth, heading right toward them.

Dean heard his father yell and he raised his gun, aiming right for the huge black shape that leaped at him, fangs gleaming in the moonlight.

He fired and the creature twisted in mid-air, howling in agony. It hit the ground with a thump and Dean stood staring, frozen to the spot.

He jerked at the sound of his father's voice calling his name.  
"Dean! Dean, is Sam all right? Are either of you boys hurt?"

Dean lowered his gun and grinned at John as he stepped into the clearing. "We're good, Dad," he said, "Right, Sammy?"

He turned to his brother, grin widening as he saw Sam's eyes. They glowed with appreciation, and something else, something like hero-worship. His heart sped up and he felt warm all over.

Dean laughed and clapped Sam on the back. "We're good, Dad," he said again. ~

*

Dean sits slumped at the table for what feels like hours, drifting. His thoughts are a maelstrom swirling around in his brain and keeping him off balance. He's vaguely aware of the early morning light coming in through the window, infusing the cabin with a cold gray glow.

Restless, nerves taut with exhaustion and grief, Dean has the nagging feeling that there's something he needs to be doing, but he can't think of what it could be. Every time he thinks of Sam, renewed awareness floods over him with an adrenaline rush that makes him sick to his stomach and he twitches in his seat, fingers clenching feebly at the half-empty bottle of whiskey still clutched in his hand.

Dean tries doesn't want think about his father, but it's impossible not to. His failure burns in his chest, making it hard to breathe.

Sam's gone.

*

~ "What do you mean, he's gone?" John's face was dark and furious, and Dean swallowed.

"He just disappeared," Dean said hoarsely. "I've looked everywhere, everywhere I can think of." Dean couldn't breathe for a moment, panic almost getting the better of him. He swallowed again. His father didn't allow panic. Fear was okay, fear could teach him things, fear could be overcome. Panic was unproductive and forbidden.

Dean had felt nothing _but_ panic for the past week. He'd gotten up last Sunday morning to the kind of unnatural silence that meant he was alone.

He'd wracked his brain, trying to remember through his epic hangover if Sam had a soccer game, or a breakfast date with that skinny Loretta girl who was always mooning around after him.

It seemed lately as if she was always there, hanging out on the porch in the early evening, or sitting at the kitchen table with Sam after school. She'd been there more often since Dad had left to go deal with a poltergeist in Albuquerque last week.

Sam had blushed furiously when she first came around, introducing her to Dean with a mumbled, "Loretta, this is my brother Dean," but after a while, he'd gained some confidence, seemed a lot more relaxed when she was around.

Dean decided he was proud of the kid, having a girlfriend at his age. The kid was a shrimp, and if Dean sometimes felt a heat low in his belly when he looked at Sam, well, all the more reason for Sam to have a girlfriend. The kind of thoughts Dean was having terrified him, made his feelings for Sam seem like a perversion of what they were supposed to be, and he pushed them aside and smiled at Sam's little girlfriend with something like gratitude.

Dad hadn't said much, just kind of smiled at Loretta the few times he was home when she was over; nodded and said, "Nice to meet you."

Anyway, Dean thought Sam might have met her for breakfast, or to go to church with her family – and wasn't that a weirdo thing for Sam to do - and he didn't give it a second thought as he grappled with the kettle drum playing in his head and the urge to puke up everything he'd ever eaten.

Dean didn't normally hang out with anyone from school. He was getting close to finally persuading his father to let him quit high school and he had very little in common with the lame-os who were stuck there, making plans for college and marriage and all that other loser shit that Dean thanked heaven everyday he was never going to have to deal with.

No Norman Rockwell life for him, no sir. He was going keep hunting with his dad and his brother, and if sometimes Sammy was less than enthusiastic about that life, well, he'd get over it once he was done with the whole puberty thing.

Dean remembered being pretty crazy himself when he was Sam's age and he could be patient. Sam would come around.

Sam. Dean wondered again where he could be as he glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand between his and Sam's beds. He tugged a t-shirt over his still damp hair and decided it was time to get serious about locating his pain-in-the-ass little brother.

He swallowed a couple of aspirin with a glass of lukewarm tap water, wondering if there was any coffee left or if he'd have to go buy some. He'd be able to think a lot better with the help of some caffeine.

Several hours later Dean was in a blind panic. He'd scrounged around in Sam's stuff until he found a scrap of paper with _Loretta 505-9485_ written neatly across it. He called and talked to her, shaken to find her at home and with no idea where Sam was.

Dean got in his car and drove all over town, vowing to kill his little brother the minute he found his scrawny ass. He was just grateful that John had recently bought a truck and given Dean the Impala. At least he had wheels to go look for the kid.

Driving in ever-increasing concentric circles out into the surrounding desert, Dean's heart sped up at every shadow lurking behind every giant cactus on the side of the highway, but none of them were Sam.

Darkness finally fell, forcing Dean to return to the bright lights of the little town they'd been living in for the past several months. He realized he hadn't eaten all day when he got out of the car at the house they were renting and almost landed on his ass on the gravel driveway, his head spinning.

Going inside, his heart was in his throat. Dean's palms sweat with the hope Sam had come home, but the house was dark and eerily quiet.

Dean turned on a few lights and made a sandwich, forcing himself to choke it down while he stood at the kitchen sink and stared out into the starry desert sky.

The next two days were more of the same, driving around looking for Sam. Dean discovered that Sam's backpack was missing and for a minute the knowledge that Sam had left willingly filled him with a rage that was almost incandescent.

There followed several more days when Dean drove and paced and checked the newspapers and local television news and discovered abso-fucking-lutely nothing that gave him any clue as to where Sam had gone. Dean didn't go to school and the constant state of low-level panic had him near exhaustion by the time the week was out.

Then Dad came back from the hunt he'd been on and Dean thought with the part of his brain that wasn't gibbering in panic that this was the worst day of his life, worse even than the striga.

John was furious. He addressed Dean in clipped tones, barking orders, glaring at him with such disappointment and disapproval that Dean felt crushed under the weight of it. He knew that when Sam came back – because they would get him back, goddammit, and Dean would tear him a new one when they did – when Sam came back, it wouldn't make a bit of difference in the way Dad looked at Dean.

He had almost placed himself beyond forgiveness.

When Sam finally called, John answered the phone. Dean knew instantly that it was Sam and the relief was almost enough to send him to his knees.

"Flagstaff," John growled at Dean as he flung out of the house and headed for his truck. "Stay here."

None of them had ever spoken of it again. Dad brought Sam back the next day; John tight-lipped with anger, Sam subdued but no less angry.

As usual, their psychodrama didn't involve Dean except in the fallout, and after a while, the incident faded into the background of their generally fucked-up family dynamics. ~

*

While he watches Dean drift in and out of a kind of restless fugue, Sam tries to figure out the logistics of being a ghost. Is he supposed to rest sometimes? Will he lose time? Will he always be right there with Dean, every minute of every hour of every day?

He doesn't feel tired, and he isn't exactly bored, but…he's definitely beginning to understand the concept of a _restless spirit_.

"Dean," he says. "Dean."

Dean's face twitches, a slight frown appearing, just a wrinkle between his brows. Sam sighs.

He wants to make it better, but there's not much he can do other than be here. It isn't enough and again he feels anger at Jake, at the yellow-eyed demon, at everything.

Sam's vengeance will be terrible. They will pay for what they've done to his brother. The sense of fatalistic acceptance he had earlier is long gone, and hardly missed.

Sam paces, but it does nothing to dissipate the energy humming under his skin. He moves to the window and stares up at the sky, the morning light moving across his face. A small crack suddenly appears in the glass where his hand rests. Sam feels a triumphant sense of accomplishment and he smiles in satisfaction.

He takes a deep breath and looks again at his brother. There's nothing to do but stay by Dean's side. Sam has left Dean before, but no more. He won't do it again.

Besides - somehow, Dean always finds him.

*

~ The summer after Sam turned fourteen, they spent time in Alabama. There was a series of hunts, one thing right after another, and they ended up living in a trailer outside of Mobile at the end of a rarely used access road to the beach.

They'd never lived this close to a major body of water before and Sam was fascinated. He would leave the trailer early in the day and trudge down the road to the beach, the morning sun already hot on his neck. There he'd sit with a book, the sound of circling seagulls often lulling him back to sleep. He'd doze in the sand, the sun on his face, until Dean joined him, a cup of coffee in his hand, his face still wrinkled with sleep.

"What the hell, Sammy. It's early as fuck," he'd grumble. He said the same thing every morning and Sam would grin into his book.

They'd sit there in silence, listening to the sound of the waves, until Dean would stand up, brush the sand off his ass, and say, "Dad wants us to clean the guns," or "Dad wants us to practice with the crossbow," or "Dad wants us to run five miles."

Sam would tense with anger and annoyance but he always got up to follow his brother back to the trailer, to do whatever stupid thing Dad wanted them to do.

Mostly because it was too hot to put up much of a fight.

Sometimes they went with Dad on a hunt, and however much Sam hated his life, the adrenaline rush of putting what they'd learned through research and studying the lore into action and killing black dogs or rawheads, or banishing a poltergeist, was pretty damn addictive. He would never admit it in a million years, to either his father or his brother, but he suspected Dean knew anyway, if the smirk on his face when they were all standing around watching some evil-ass thing burn was any indication.

It was a fairly uneventful summer, considering what it was the Winchesters did with their time. No one got hurt, aside from the usual bumps and bruises and lacerations. Sam was getting pretty good at stitching up cuts and putting dislocated shoulders back into place. All the life skills you needed if you were lucky enough to be a Winchester.

One morning at the beach, when they were sitting in the sand watching the waves, gulls swooping and calling to each other out over the water, Sam lost his head.

He didn't know how it happened. One minute they were sprawled peacefully on a couple of old towels, Dean sipping coffee and Sam pretending to read his book. The next minute, Sam's mouth was on Dean's, kissing him.

Dean stiffened in surprise, and Sam panicked. He pulled away, knocking Dean's coffee cup out of his hand. Sam was vaguely aware that his book was soaked with coffee as he jumped to his feet and ran.

The sand held him back. He couldn't get any traction; it sucked at his feet and tried to pull him down, back down to Dean. His heart leapt in his chest and he doubled his efforts, making it to the access road and racing down it.

Sam kept going when he got to their trailer. He wasn't sure how far he ran but when he stopped to catch his breath, he was almost to the highway.

He stood, terrified of what he had just done but exhilarated at the same time. He'd finally done it. He'd kissed Dean.

And then he ran away like a big, fat chicken, his brain told him helpfully.

Sam sighed and turned back toward the beach and their trailer.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Dean approaching from a hundred yards down the road.

His heart beat faster as Dean got closer but Sam stood his ground. Whatever happened, even if Dean kicked his ass, he wasn't sorry he'd done it. He'd been wanting to forever and the relief of finally doing it outweighed his fear of Dean's reaction. Dean loved him and it would be okay.

Sam stood in the bright Alabama sunshine and waited for his brother to catch up with him. ~

*

Dean is running. He's running through mud, deep, wet and sticky. It's pulling at his boots, trying to bring him down.

Rain lashes at his face, cold and sharp, almost piercing his skin.

Sam is up ahead, staggering toward Dean, clutching at his left arm.

He's too far away. Dean will never reach him in time. He doesn't know where the danger lies but he knows it's there, waiting for them.

"Sam!" Dean yells until his throat is raw and Sam answers him.

"Dean," he cries, over the sound of the rain. His voice is carried away on the wind, away from Dean.

"Sammy!"

It doesn't seem to matter how much Dean runs; Sam never gets any closer. There's an unearthly light behind Sam. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminate the scene, but Dean can't reach his brother.

"Dean!" Sam calls to him, and Dean feels the sharp heat of panic in his chest. There's a figure looming behind Sam, and Dean screams.

"Sam, look out!"

Sam doesn't hear him. He doesn't turn around; his eyes don't leave Dean as he stumbles forward.

The figure behind Sam gets closer and Dean can see the flash of a knife. Dean is hoarse from screaming but still Sam doesn't turn around to see what's there, to protect himself.

"Dean," Sam whispers, but Dean can hear him, even from so far away. "Dean, help me."

Dean knows he can never reach Sam in time. Despair washes over him, leaving him standing helpless in the mud.

Dean wakes up with a start, gasping for breath. He looks around, trying to get his bearings. The dream leaves him trembling and nauseous and he knows he's going to be having it for the rest of his life.

*

Dean's been up and pacing for a while, the confines of the cabin closing in around him. He'd leave, get the hell away, but there's nowhere to go.

The wind picks up around mid-morning, howling through the trees. Some trees don't drop their autumn leaves until spring arrives to blow them away and Dean can hear dry rustling as old leaves are ripped away from the branches they clung to over the winter.

Clouds scud across the sky, hiding whatever sun might have penetrated the trees that surround the cabin. There are candles scattered around and Dean lights a few of them.

Weak flames flicker in the tiny gusts of air that come in through the cracks around the ill-fitting windows. Shadows dance across the tattered wallpaper.

Pale daylight barely penetrates into the corners of the cabin, leaving Sam's body cloaked in a merciful darkness.

Dean thinks this is what Hell must be like.

He stops moving as that thought ignites a spark in his brain. A glimmer of a possibility of hope. He's reaching for Sam's duffle and his hands pause in mid-air.

He forgets what he was looking for, nothing in his head except the possibility, which, once it's taken hold, refuses to let go.

He sinks slowly into the chair by the table.

He can't. Sam would never forgive him.

But it's something. It's a possibility, and it allows him a moment of respite from the darkness in his soul.

*

Sam's sitting at the table, too, although Dean doesn't know it. He's worried by Dean's sudden stillness, and the expression on Dean's face as he settles back into his chair makes Sam uneasy.

Sam had been staring off into space, thinking about the recurring nightmare he used to have when he was a kid. He frowns, trying to recall the details. He'd had it a lot when he was five or six and Dad thought it had been brought on by the stress of starting school.

Sam thought that was stupid. He loved school from the very first minute he walked through the door of that tiny kindergarten classroom in Iowa, or wherever the hell they'd lived then. He wasn't stressed.

But he'd had it more often than he'd ever admitted at the time, even to Dean.

Thinking back, Sam can remember looking up, seeing something spinning above his head. Then there was a face, and something sticky dripping down on him, red and viscous. A flash of yellow, and that's all he'd ever been able to recall. After a while, Dad and Dean had stopped asking him for details, just hung out with him until he fell back to sleep.

Dad would rub a big hand on Sam's back, under his pajama top, rhythmically soothing him back to sleep. If Dad was away, or asleep, Dean would curl around him, whispering silly words of comfort in his ear.

And now he knows. That son of a bitch with the yellow eyes had fed him demon blood, and Sam's subconscious had held on to that, had shown Sam those memories, until he guesses he'd gotten tired of seeing them and the dreams went away.

If he'd lived, if Jake hadn't stabbed him in the back like the fucking coward he was, if Dean and Bobby had gotten there a moment sooner….

Anger overtakes him again. It makes his skin feel too tight and his head throbs with it.

Fucking Jake. Fucking Yellow Eyes. Fuck them all. He doesn't know how, but someday he's going to make them all pay.

*

Sam remembers his mother, or rather, his mother's spirit. The way she had touched his face, said his name, with such love, and with none of the anger that Dean insisted all supernatural things had.

She hadn't been evil or vengeful. She had saved them.

Spirits could be kind, could reflect the person they'd been in life. Sam holds that truth close to himself. He never wants to have a reason to regret staying with Dean.

He never wants to give Dean a reason to wish he hadn't stayed.

Sam concentrates, thinking about Dean, about their lives, together and apart. Thinking about what Dean likes.

He closes his eyes and concentrates hard.

*

~ Dean pushed Sam against the wall of the old barn, hands twisting in Sam's t-shirt.

"Dean –" Sam tried to protest. Dean's hands tightened and he shoved his hips against Sam's. Sam closed his mouth with a click.

"Shut up, Sammy. For once in your life, just shut the fuck up," Dean growled in his ear, right before he set his mouth on Sam's neck and bit down, hard.

Sam drew in a gasp and his hips jerked forward, pressing against Dean; feeling how hard he was under his jeans, shivering at the pressure and heat.

Dean pushed Sam's shirt up under his armpits and his mouth moved down to Sam's exposed collarbone, small bites that made Sam grit his teeth to keep from moaning. He wasn't about to give Dean the satisfaction.

Sam's hands were on Dean's waist and he pulled Dean in tighter, closer, his thumbs slipping across the soft skin under the waistband of Dean's boxers. He griped Dean tight, so far gone already that he'd lost all coordination, all ability to think.

But Dean was there, fumbling with Sam's belt, getting his own jeans undone, until they were both bare, and Dean wrapped his hands, his beautiful hands, around both their cocks, rubbed and pulled until Sam saw stars.

It was rough and ready and just what Sam wanted. He came with a cry, his hands tightening on Dean until he was sure there would be bruises.

"Goddammit, Sam, you fucker," Dean hissed, and then he groaned, spilling hot over Sam's cock. Sam let go of Dean's hips and joined his hand with Dean's, stroking him through the last of his climax.

Dean rested his forehead on Sam's shoulder while he caught his breath. Sam tilted his head back against the wall of the barn and waited.

But Dean's anger seemed to have dissipated, burned off in the heat of their passion. He reached up and brushed Sam's hair off his forehead, then shook his head ruefully.

"You ever gonna stop using that girly shampoo you like so much, Samantha?" He tugged on a lock of hair and Sam jerked his head back, pulling away from Dean's grasp.

"Do I look like a girl to you, Dean?" Sam asked, looking pointedly down at his dick where it still hung free of his pants.

"Nope," Dean smirked, wiping his hand on Sam's stomach.

"Fucker," Sam said, without heat. He was content that Dean was no longer pissed off about whatever stupid thing he'd been angry about. Sam could barely remember what it was. The taste and feel of each other, that was all that mattered.

"I'm telling ya," Dean said, as he pulled away and tucked himself back into his pants. "You smell like strawberries, and I'm thinking that's not such a good smell for a guy like you."

"A guy like me?" Sam echoed.

Dean reached forward and kissed Sam, deep and dirty with lots of tongue. "A guy like you," he agreed, and Sam completely lost track of the conversation, too busy kissing his brother stupid to even care. ~

*

Dean gets lost in his head for a while, thinking about things he has no right to think about, dangerous and foolish hopes, and he drifts off into a troubled sleep. He startles awake and for a minute he has no idea where he is. The scent of strawberries is in the air and he smiles.

Sammy is here.

"Sam," he mumbles, and he wonders why his mouth is so dry. His neck is stiff and he realizes he's been sleeping in an extremely uncomfortable wooden chair.

And then it all rushes back, where he is and why, and his eyes close in brand new despair.

But he can still smell strawberries and for some reason, that brings him a small measure of comfort.

He gets up and wanders over to Sam's duffle bag. He can't figure out why he's not drunk, what with the almost-empty bottle of Jack sitting accusingly on the table. Maybe because he keeps passing out, only to slowly come back to consciousness when the booze wears off.

Maybe the fresh realization that Sam is dead every time he wakes up isn't worth the bliss of the unconsciousness the whiskey brings.

Dean unzips the duffle bag and rummages around in it, pawing through the contents until he finds what he's looking for. Pulling out Sam's toilet kit, he pokes around, but he discovers there isn't any of that strawberry-flavored shampoo Dean likes to rag Sam about. They've been busy and it's been hit or miss, finding time for the mundane activities of daily living like laundry or shopping for toiletries.

Dean moves one of the chairs close to the bed Sam is resting on and sits down. He stays there for a long time, fingers rhythmically stroking the leather of the kit, trying to find some measure of Sam in the things he chose to buy for himself, the things that are important enough to search out in their nomadic life.

Tucked away in a side pocket of the duffle bag is Sam's journal. They both keep journals, something they learned from Dad. Dean opens Sam's and his eyes skim over the messy handwriting and badly drawn illustrations. Artistic, Sam isn't.

Wasn't.

There are photos and snapshots tucked between the last page and the back cover of the book. They fall out, landing in Dean's lap. One by one, he carefully studies them.

There's a creased picture of the four of them standing in front of the house in Lawrence, Mom and Dad, Dean and Sam. Dean has the same picture tucked away in his own journal. There's a picture of Sam at his high school prom, a smiling blonde in a white dress standing next to him, her hand tucked proprietarily in the crook of Sam's elbow.

Her name was Rachael.

Dean can't remember the name of the high school, but he remembers the girl. He remembers how he felt, watching Sam leave their run-down trailer in his shiny black tux, clutching a wristlet of pink rosebuds tightly in his hand, all long legs and nervous, excited smile.

Dean had wanted to smash something that night. He'd been grateful Dad was away, leaving him alone to drown his jealousy in tequila.

Sam came home the next morning, tux rumpled and bowtie missing, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. Dean greeted him with tight-lipped silence, and Sam's smile had faded.

They hadn't fucked for months after that.

Dean finds a picture of the two of them together, standing outside a minor league baseball park. He has a hot dog in one hand and a beer in the other, and Sam is looking down on him with a soft smile. Dean has no idea who could have taken it.

There are two pictures of Jessica. One of her alone, sitting in front of a window illuminated by sunshine, smiling at the camera, her hair golden around her face and shoulders. The beauty of it makes Dean's throat ache.

The other one is of Sam and Jessica together at some kind of Halloween party, it looks like. Jessica is dressed in a very sexy nurse's uniform and Sam is wearing a plain hoodie.

Dean smiles.

He sits there for the better part of the morning, looking at Sam's pictures.

*

Dean pours a trickle of water over his hands and rubs them together, trying to get just a little bit more of Sam's blood off them. It's almost gone; most of what's left is dried and congealed under his fingernails.

He turns back to the car, where he's been using the last of the bottled water he found in the trunk to clean the blood off the upholstery.

The thing about blood, though, is that it spreads, and the more you try to clean it up, the farther it reaches, until everything important is covered with it.

Dean has seen Sam's blood before. He's seen more of it than he ever wanted to. He patched Sam up, sewed up gashes on his body put there by werewolves and black dogs and ghosts with giant hooks. He bandaged Sam's knees countless times when he was a kid, always tripping over his feet and coming to Dean to be put back together again.

He wiped blood away from Sam's mouth whenever someone punched him, even if that someone happened to be Dean himself.

Dean did the same for his father, and his father and Sam have done the same for him. They did it expertly and without fuss, inured over the years to the bright copper smell and warm stickiness of familial blood.

But this is different. This blood, spreading and smearing over the back seat, was Sam's lifeblood. Sam may have been dead the minute he hit his knees in the mud at Cold Oak, but he still bled out all over the car they've called home for most of their lives.

She took that blood, absorbed it, and now she didn't seem to want to give it up, keeping hold of it as if it was meant to become part of her very fabric. Keeping Sam with them even in death.

Dean's so damn tired. He has been for a long time and he pauses in his efforts, resting his forehead on the back of the front seat, waiting for the strength to keep moving.

*

Sam is pleased that his blood is proving to be so hard for Dean to wash away. It will make their connection almost indestructible. Not only his spirit, but his life essence, the stuff that pumped oxygen through his body and kept him alive, will be with Dean from now on.

He smiles at Dean from the front seat.

"It's okay, Dean, it's all going to be okay."

*

Dean goes back inside the cabin. He stands and watches Sam for what feels like a very long time.

The corners of the room are dark and the shadows across Sam's body almost hide him from Dean's view. Dean's mind feels blank, empty; there are no thoughts, just white noise roaring in his ears.

He doesn't know what to do with himself, with this endless day. He can't sit still and he can't keep moving.

The slamming of the cabin door startles him out of his trance. Bobby's voice makes him cut his eyes away from Sam, just for an instant.

"Dean? Brought you this back." Dean doesn't turn to look. It's probably food of some sort. Whatever it is, it's not important enough to tear his gaze away from his brother's face for more than a moment.

"No, thanks, I'm fine." Dean feels as if he hasn't spoken for hours and his voice is rusty with disuse.

"You should eat something."

"I said I'm fine." Dean makes himself turn away from Sam. There's a bucket of chicken on the table that hadn't been there before. He ignores it and picks up the bottle of Jack instead, takes a drink.

Bobby frowns, looking concerned. He hesitates before he says his next words. Dean thinks he should have waited longer. Years, maybe.

"Dean, I hate to bring this up, I really do." Bobby pauses and Dean knows what he's going to say. "But don't you think it's time we buried Sam?"

"No." Dean's mind recoils in panic. If they bury Sam, then it's over and Dean's not ready for that. His legs don't seem to want to hold him up and he sits abruptly down at the table.

Bobby takes a breath, tries again. "We could maybe…"

Dean takes another drink. "What, torch his corpse? Not yet." No way. He has to fix this and he won't be able to if they burn Sam's body. The thing he's been thinking of doing is so…unthinkable…he's not sure he's going to be able to do it.

So, what, he's a fucking coward? Afraid to sacrifice everything for Sam? What kind of a brother is he?

"I want you to come with me," Bobby says, and there's a rough kindness in his voice. Dean doesn't meet his eyes, afraid Bobby will know what he's thinking about doing.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says with finality.

"Dean, please." Bobby's insistent, but Dean doesn't even consider leaving.

He doesn't want to get mad at Bobby, he really doesn't. "Why don't you cut me some slack," he says, hoping Bobby will let it go, give him a break and just leave.

"I just don't think you should be alone, that's all." As if going back to Bobby's house would make any of this more bearable. "And I gotta admit, I could use your help."

Dean lets out a breath that could have been mistaken for a laugh under different circumstances.

"Something big is going down," Bobby says. "End of the world big."

"Well, then let it end," Dean roars, coming to his feet, suddenly furious. "Who the fuck gives a shit?"

"You don't mean that," Bobby sighs, squinting at him as if he really believes what he's saying.

Dean glares at Bobby, looks him straight in the eye and says, "You don't think so? You don't think I've given enough?" Bobby looks away, but Dean's not finished. "You don't think I've paid enough? I'm done with it. All of it. If you know what's good for you, you'll turn around, get the hell out of here."

Bobby just stands there, looking sadder than Dean has ever seen him, like all the pity in the world wouldn't be enough for this. It infuriates Dean even more.

"Go!" He shoves Bobby angrily, and Bobby stumbles back a few feet.

And then Dean feels like shit. He doesn't want to hurt Bobby, but it doesn't matter, none of it matters and he just wants Bobby to go away. Almost beyond reason at this point, he needs Bobby to leave. He feels like a cornered rat, snapping at whatever threatens Sam.

"I'm sorry," Dean says hoarsely. "I'm sorry. Please just go." He leans heavily on the back the chair, unable to look at Bobby anymore.

Bobby sags in defeat. He just stands there, hovering, until Dean thinks he might scream. Finally he says with resignation, "You know where I'll be," and then he's gone, thank God, he's gone and Dean is alone with Sam again.

He looks over at the bed.

"Sammy? He's gone, Sam. Please."

Dean thinks about what it'll be like when he can hear Sam's voice again.

*

~ "Morse code is stupid," Sam grumbled. It wasn't really. He thought it was totally cool to be able to tap on something and have it make noise that translated to words. Like a secret language, like sign language or something.

Huh, better not say that out loud or Dad would have them learning sign language so they could communicate out on a hunt without making any noise at all.

And that would be cool, too, but there was something about being _forced_ to learn a thing that rubbed Sam the wrong way. Not to mention he had _homework_ and that was a lot more useful. No matter how cool it was, Morse code was not going to get Sam into the college of his choice.

"Shut up," Dean said mildly. "What's the matter, isn't there any room in your giant brain for a few dots and dashes?"

"I just don't see why we need to learn anything more than SOS, is all," Sam griped. It was dark and cramped in this stupid motel room and this was boring.

Dean cocked his head and looked thoughtfully at Sam. Sam raised his eyebrows and looked back. _What?_

"C'mere," was all Dean said and he stood up from the table, grasping Sam's wrist in his hand. Towing him toward the still-unmade bed, Dean sprawled out over the mussed up covers and pulled Sam down on top of him.

"Dean, what're you –" but Dean put an end to Sam's complaints by kissing him, his mouth moving against Sam's slowly and with intent, making Sam forget whatever he'd been going to bitch about.

Dean's hands slid up under Sam's shirt and somewhere in the rush of adolescent lust, Sam realized Dean was tapping on his back, dots and dashes up and down his spine.

Sam rolled his eyes and chuckled into Dean's mouth, even as he pressed his hips down, making Dean's fingers stutter meaninglessly for a moment.

This was a way of learning he could get behind. ~

*

As the sun sets, the crickets start their song and other night critters scurry around in the woods. Dean doesn't know whether to be spooked or comforted by the sounds

Dean can barely feel the passing of time. It's like being trapped in quicksand, or a dense fog. Everything is muffled.

Dusk is a lonely time, the light uncertain, noises amplified. The long night stretches out ahead and it seems an eternity until morning.

Slowly, Dean becomes aware of a faint tapping noise. He looks around the cabin but there's no apparent source. It's probably a tree branch against the window, or the scuffling of a mouse, or maybe a raccoon under the house.

And then he realizes there's a kind of rhythm to it and he strains to listen.

_long – short – short  
short  
short – long  
long – short_

It repeats several times and it doesn't take Dean long to recognize his own name.

_long – short – short  
short  
short – long  
long – short_

"Sam?" he whispers.

_short – short – short - short  
short  
short – long – short  
short_

H-E-R-E

Here? Sam's here?

"Sammy?"

_short – long – short – short  
long – long – long –  
short – short – short – long  
short_

L-O-V-E

Dean doesn't understand and he doesn't like the implications. Sam can't be here. That would mean…

No. Dean shivers in the chill night air of the unheated cabin and makes his mind go blank. He doesn't know how long he sits there, straining to listen, his mind and body exhausted at the prospect of keeping watch over Sam through another long, dark night.

_short – long – short – short  
long – long – long –  
short – short – short – long  
short_

L-O-V-E

He hears it again and again until he doesn't hear it anymore.

*

 

Dean turns Sam _Sam's body_ gently to the side. He's _not_ preparing it for anything. He's just washing away the blood, like he's done a million times before.

Like they've done for each other a million times before.

He's seen Sam bleed too many times to count but he's never seen this kind of wound on his brother's body. He stares in sick fascination at the jagged edges on Sam's back, at the dirt and mud mixed in with the blood.

The knife had been dirty, caked in mud; that much is clear. Dean's hands tremble with anger. Someone _stabbed Sam in the back_. That piece of shit coward came up behind him and stabbed him when he wasn't looking, when he had given up the fight and was trying to get to Dean.

How dare someone touch Sam, how dare someone do this to Dean's _brother?_ No one has that right and when Dean finds the son of a bitch, he's going to rip his lungs out.

Dean wets the rag again, dips it in the bowl of pink water and wrings it out with shaking hands. He wipes the blood from Sam's skin, taking care to get the dirt, too.

He smiles a little when he remembers patching up Sam's knees after a tumble on the playground. He remembers the jagged cut on Sam's hand, when they were climbing all over the junk cars in Bobby's yard and Sam slipped trying to keep up with Dean, and how Dad had yelled about having to go to a clinic to get Sam a tetanus shot.

He remembers an early hunt, when Sam was finally old enough to go with them. Sam was supposed to hang back and observe and both John and Dean were so focused on making sure Sam did just that, they hadn't noticed the ghost, armed with both a meat cleaver and a butcher knife, circling around behind them.

Sam had noticed, though, and he'd yelled for them to look out. They had, but not soon enough to prevent Sam from being cut; one long, deep scratch running down his arm. Dad had let Dean take care of it, knowing he needed to be able to do that. It had taken half a dozen stitches but it hadn't really been that big of a deal.

Sam had been shot in the shoulder once and Dean had dug the bullet out, watching the wound bleed sluggishly while he cleaned it and packed it with gauze soaked in antibiotic solution.

Dean has spent a good part of his life patching Sam up, cleaning his wounds, and Sam has done the same for him.

This wound is the ugliest thing Dean has ever seen, in a lifetime full of ugly things.

*

~ They spent time in East Lansing, Michigan when Sam was sixteen. It wasn't a bad place, really, and Sam enjoyed the several months he spent at East Lansing High School. There was an AP History teacher in particular that Sam really liked and he got to play a little soccer while they were there.

And there was Doug. Doug was his best friend for most of the time they lived there; right up until the night Dean threatened to kill him.

Doug was skinny, almost as tall as Sam and he loved model trains.

That was the dorkiest thing Sam had ever heard of and it made Dean stare in amazement when Sam told him about it. Sam smiled, happy to know that for once, he wasn't the biggest geek in the room.

So they hung out, playing around with Doug's trains, going to the library, or maybe catching a movie together. Doug's parents seemed like regular people and he had a little sister who always followed them around, threatening to tell on Doug if he didn't let her play with them.

It was so normal and safe that Sam hated Doug a little for it.

Dad decided they were done in East Lansing and announced that they were leaving on the second Saturday in October. As always, it was completely irrelevant that Sam would prefer to stay.

He and Doug were walking home from school the Wednesday before they left town. It was a bright, sunny fall day, with just the slightest chill in the air. Leaves swirled at their feet as they ambled along, talking about their history papers.

"Ooh, look," Doug said, pointing to something lying on the side of the road.

They stopped and moved closer to the small mound of fur. Looking down, Sam could see it was a cat that had been hit by a car. Lifeless eyes stared up from a broken body, there were guts spread around, flattened by a car tire. Flies listlessly circled the carcass, landing and taking off again in no real pattern.

Sam looked up at Doug and found himself taking a step back. Doug's eyes were shining, greedy, and his tongue came out, running over his bottom lip in a way that seemed vaguely obscene and made Sam's stomach lurch.

"That's gross, man," Sam said, trying to pass the whole thing off as a joke. He made to turn and walk away but Doug's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Look at it, Sam. This is what we all end up as. One minute we're alive and the next, we're just a pile of blood and guts, covered in flies." He smiled knowingly at Sam. "You know it's true."

Sam jerked back, shaking Doug's hand off his arm. "No."

Doug advanced on Sam, still smiling that creepy smile. "Blood, Sam. Blood is what's important." He held out his hand, and there was a cut on his inner wrist, shallow and oozing blood. "Taste it, Sam."

"What? No! Are you crazy?" Sam took another step back and stumbled on the curb, almost going down. Doug grabbed his shoulder to keep him from falling and somehow his arm was in Sam's face and there was blood smeared across Sam's lips.

Sam jerked away. He turned and ran towards home, Doug's laughter ringing in his ears. He was too freaked out to stay and kick Doug's ass like he knew he should.

He was in the shower when the curtain was suddenly yanked back and he jumped, startled. Dean stood there grinning, his best "gotcha" expression on his face.

The smirk was gone in an instant when Dean really looked at him. "What's wrong? What happened? Sam?"

Sam shook his head wordlessly. He was too weirded out to even talk about it. Dean quickly stripped out of his clothes and was in the shower with his arms around Sam before Sam could even figure out what to say.

"Did someone hurt you? Tell me, come on, Sam, give me a damn clue, here." Dean's voice was urgent and Sam shook his head again.

He looked at Dean, water cascading over his shoulders, dripping down his face and felt marginally better.

"It was nothing, I'm fine. I just…saw something gross, that's all." His eyes pleaded with Dean to drop it, to let it go. "I'm fine," he said with as much conviction as he could muster.

Dean stared at him very seriously for a moment, then finally nodded and leaned forward to kiss Sam's forehead. Sam allowed it for a moment, then pulled back, batting at Dean with still-trembling hands.

"If you're going to kiss me, do it right," he groused, and the smirk was back on Dean's face as he complied.

But Sam couldn't stop thinking about it and after the third time Dean guffawed at whatever dumb sitcom he was watching and Sam didn't laugh with him, Sam found himself with a face full of pissed-off Dean in full older-brother mode.

"Tell me what happened," Dean growled, punctuating each word with a poke to Sam's chest.

"Get off me," Sam said, shoving at Dean and grabbing at his finger. "I'm trying to watch TV." He peered over Dean's shoulder at the television.

Dean snorted. "Nice try, Sammy. Now start talking."

So Sam spilled and told Dean the whole creepy story. Dean's face darkened with anger as he listened.

"Son of a bitch." He was up off the couch and heading for the door before Sam could stop him.

Sam jumped up and ran after him, yanking at his arm. "Dean, wait," he pleaded. "Just leave it alone. We're out of here in a couple of days, anyway. It doesn't matter."

"I'm gonna kill him, Sam. Let me go." Dean was deadly serious. Sam couldn't let him get close to Doug.

"I don't want you near him, okay?" Sam said desperately. "He's just a sick, creepy weirdo and I don't want him to touch –" Sam faltered. "Just, please, leave it alone."

Dean considered him for a moment, and then nodded. "If that's what you want, Sam. Okay."

Sam managed to avoid Doug at school the next two days, and then they were in the car, heading to the next place, the next hunt.

But for those couple of days after his best friend lost his mind and went serial-killer psycho with the blood, Sam had the strangest feelings. He felt strong and powerful, and very much on edge.

It wasn't something he ever told Dean about. ~

*

~ The first time Sam got drunk it was Dean's fault. Dad had wavered between being disapproving and amused when he got home and found Sam's hung-over ass draped across the ratty motel couch, a plastic bag of ice cubes melting on his head. Sam didn't know which reaction annoyed him more. He was seventeen years old, for Christ's sake. He didn't get what the big deal was.

He was totally overdue, in his opinion.

Dean agreed. He himself hadn't been twenty-one all that long and he still got off on flashing a real ID instead of a fake one when he went to a bar. Sam had no idea why. Dean liked to think of himself as the consummate outlaw type and a fake ID seemed right up his alley.

Maybe he got his jollies by making Sam a fake ID. He'd certainly had plenty of practice, since the Winchsters survived on credit card fraud and false identities.

So Dean dragged Sam with him to the redneck bar next to their motel, to "celebrate" his fake twenty-first birthday with what felt like a million beers, interspersed with shots of something that made Sam stop breathing and burned a hole in his chest with every swallow.

They sat side by side in a booth in the back on cracked plastic seats, with a battered wooden table under their elbows. As the evening progressed Sam lost all feeling in his lips and fingertips.

"Such a lightweight, Sammy," Dean teased. "Drink up."

They stumbled back to the motel after the bar closed up, with Sam's arm over Dean's shoulder and Dean supporting his weight.

"Aaayyhooo," Sam threw back his head and howled, and then he giggled and tripped over his feet and giggled again. Dean caught him around the waist.

"A real lightweight," Dean said fondly.

"You know it, motherfucker," Sam said, his words getting tangled on his tongue. "Or, you know, brotherfucker." He snickered because that was the funniest thing he'd ever said.

"Not tonight, dude," Dean said. "You're not gonna be fucking anyone tonight, dude."

"Why not?" Sam pouted. "Don't you love me anymore?"

Dean kept one arm around him while the other one fumbled for the room key. "Always, Sammy," he said as he unlocked the door and shoved Sam inside. "Always."

Sam fell face first across the bed nearest the door, his face smushed into the pillow. "That's cuz I'm awesome," he mumbled, his eyes closing.

"Here, before you smother yourself in your sleep, doofus," he heard Dean say, as the pillow beneath his face shifted so he could actually breathe. "Goodnight, Sam. Happy Birthday." ~

*

Dean can't believe there's anything left in the bottle of whiskey he's been nursing for most of the day. He's grateful, but it seems pretty improbable. Maybe there was more than one bottle. Whatever. He takes a small swallow, trying to make it last. He should have told Bobby to bring more.

Sam, now Sam isn't much of a drinker.

Wasn't much of a drinker.

Get a couple of beers in him, he was gone. Funniest damn thing Dean's ever seen. Coming from a family of hard drinkers like Dean and Dad, it was a never-ending source of amusement.

"Sammy," Dean says, raising his glass of booze in a salute. "King of the lightweights."

Dean feels something on his cheek, a slight movement of air. Almost like the huff of laughter Sam used to let out when he was drunk off his ass, giggling in Dean's ear.

Dean smiles.

*

Sam smiles back at his brother. He wishes Dean could see him; wonders if he has any idea that Sam is here. He wants so much for Dean to know, to be able to talk to him. Watching, not being seen, is torture.

He can't leave Dean alone. Dean won't make it without Sam.

Just like Sam can't imagine his life without Dean. He's not sure when that changed. He was fine at Stanford without Dean. Or maybe knowing Dean was just a phone call away if Sam ever needed him made it seem fine.

He hadn't needed Dean, but the knowledge that he was there if Sam did had been the only constant of Sam's entire life.

Maybe when that yellow-eyed son of a bitch put Jessica on the ceiling and Dean had pulled Sam from yet another burning building, maybe that's when Sam started to need Dean again.

*

~ "Do you believe in soul mates, Dean?"

"What, like Romeo and Juliet, or some shit?"

"You read _Romeo and Juliet?_"

"I saw the movie, dickwad."

"Which version?"

"The porn version. That Juliet, what a babe."

Sam sighs. If Dean is his soul mate, God must have a really twisted sense of humor.

He rolls over in the grass, propping himself up on his elbows and looking down at Dean. He's still not used to being as tall as Dean and he likes Dean like this, flat on his back. It puts them on a more equal footing, at least in Sam's head. It's not like his muscles have kept up with his bones. He's still scrawny as hell, no matter how hard he works out.

Sam wiggles his way on top of his brother and grins at the _oomph_ that elicits. Dean's hands come up and grip Sam's hips, and Sam wiggles again.

"Quit it, Sam. We're in public."

Sam rolls his eyes. "We're in the middle of a field and there's no one around for miles."

Dean pretends to consider this. "Okay," he grins, and his fingers creep up from Sam's hips to his ribs, tickling as they go.

"Stop it, you ass," Sam shrieks, his voice cracking, much to his embarrassment.

Dean laughs up at him and then kisses him breathless. He tastes like long summer afternoons and sweet, syrupy Coke.

Dean rolls them over, sheltering Sam's body from the hot sun and Sam decides he can wait just a little bit longer for his muscles to develop. ~

*

It's been dark for several hours and the moon is rising over the surrounding trees. An owl hoots in the distance and the mournful sound resonates with Dean's broken heart.

He feels as if he's been ripped in two, as if his insides have been scooped hollow and there's nothing that will ever fill him back up again.

It's the most painful thing he's ever experienced.

*

Dean knows he should give Sam a hunter's funeral. Burn his body so nothing unnatural can use it. Salt his bones so he can't come back.

And he will, he will definitely do that. Just not right this minute. He should probably do it before Bobby comes back. He's under no illusions that Bobby will leave them alone for more than a day and he won't be able to stand it if Bobby wants to help him. He doesn't want anyone touching Sam beside himself.

No one else has that right.

So, soon. Because really, what other recourse does he have? It's not like he can – there it is, that idea again. That spark of _what if_, that spark of hope.

_What's dead should stay dead._

But it doesn't always work that way.

He didn't stay dead. He should have died two years ago in Nebraska and instead some total stranger dropped dead of a heart attack in his place. Layla had been condemned to die so that Dean could live.

He should have died last year, but Dad…he doesn't want to think about Dad.

Dean has no idea what Hell is like. He's never met a demon yet who wanted to go back there. If he lets himself think about Dad and where he is right now, where he is because he sold himself for Dean, he thinks he might go crazy.

Can Dean do that for Sam? If he gets the standard ten years, maybe they can find a way out of it in that time.

He immediately feels guilty for that thought. As if he's hedging his bets, willing to give up his life and soul for Sam only if he can see a loophole somewhere.

He doesn't need a loophole. All he needs is Sam alive.

Sam will be fine without him. He always has been. He's spent half his life struggling to get away from Dean.

That's something he won't think about now, either. The last two years have made up for a lot, soothed Dean in a way he hadn't known he needed. He got his brother back and they're in this thing together.

That doesn't mean Sam can't function without him. It's not the same for Sam as it is for Dean. Oh, he knows Sam loves him.

But for Dean, Sam is everything.

He thinks about Sam burning. Not on a ceiling, but on a pyre, a pyre that Dean will have to build with his own hands.

Twice in one lifetime Dean has pulled Sam from a fire.

He won't make it a third time.

*

~ No matter what Sam did, he couldn't get rid of the smell of burning flesh. It clung to his clothes and his hair. It was permanently imbedded in his nostrils.

He kept gagging on it.

It had been two days since Jessica's funeral and Sam couldn't stop gagging. Dean wanted them to leave Palo Alto, although he wasn't saying that out loud. He'd stay forever if Sam asked him to, Sam knew. But he also knew Dean's tells and Dean was anxious to get away, get back on the road.

Part of Sam wanted that, too. On the road, in the car with Dean, where he felt safe. Loved and cared for. He wanted to get in the Impala and drive east and never look back.

Sam's friends closed ranks around him, sympathetic and appalled and protective. There were a lot of questions from the cops and Sam knew they thought there might be a case to be made for domestic violence gone very bad. His friends staunchly defended him. Brady especially was there for him, dealing with the practical matters of police investigations and Jessica's parents.

Brady was a good friend.

Dean helped Sam with the logistics of trying to salvage whatever he could from his smoke-damaged, waterlogged apartment.

But even Dean couldn't do anything about the smell. Sam huddled on the bed in their motel, Dean curled against his back, arms tight around him. Dean's hand rubbed soothing circles on Sam's chest and his breath was warm and heavy on the back of Sam's neck.

Sam tried to breathe in the scent of his brother but the acrid smell that permeated everything made that impossible. ~

*

Dean has no idea how long ago Bobby left. The air around him hums with something he's afraid to think about. His mind skitters away from the possibilities. He can't.

He can.

Moving over to the doorway, Dean stands and stares down at his brother. After a lifetime of watching him breathe it's disorienting to see a chest that doesn't move, that doesn't rise and fall.

Dean sits down in the chair he pulled up close to the bed so many hours ago. Rubbing a hand over his face, he talks to his baby brother.

"You know, when we were little - you couldn't have been more than five - you just started asking questions. How come we didn't have a mom, why'd we always have to move around, where did Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time. I remember, I begged you to quit asking, Sammy, man, you don't wanna know. I just wanted you to be a kid, just for a little while longer."

*

Sam watches Dean and tears sting his eyes at the grief he's witnessing.

"I always tried to protect you. Keep you safe. Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job. One job. And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that I'm sorry."

"You didn't screw it up, Dean. I did. I screwed it up," Sam says, desperately trying to think of a way to reach out to his brother. To comfort him in some way.

"I guess that's what I do, I let down the people I love. I let Dad down, and now I guess I'm just supposed to let you down, too. How can I? How am I supposed to live with that? What am I supposed to do? Sammy, what am I supposed to do?"

Dean stands up, quickly, jerkily. "What am I supposed to do?" It's almost more than Sam can bear to listen to, filled with pain and grief and the self-loathing Dean is so good at.

Dean stands motionless for a moment, then he turns and walks quickly to the door, decision in the set of his shoulders, determination in every step.

He flings open the door of the Impala and it's a good thing Sam only has to think about it to be in the car with him, he's in such a hurry.

Sam has no idea where Dean is going but he's knows it's not a good place. He drives like a bat out of hell, tires squealing, sliding all over the road. Dean's hands are tight on the steering wheel, his knuckles gleaming white in the moonlight. He barely blinks for miles.

Dust flies as Dean suddenly slams on the brakes, the Impala skidding on the dirt and gravel road. Dean takes a deep breath, his hands still clenched on the steering wheel, and then he's got the door open, almost throwing himself out of the car.

Dean rummages in the trunk and Sam looks around, taking in their surroundings. He feels a prickle of fear run down his spine.

A crossroads. They're at a fucking crossroads.

Dean's going to make a deal.

*

"Show your face, you bitch!"

Dean twists, looking down the road behind him, then back around again. What if the demon doesn't show up?

What if it does?

He doesn't know which would be worse.

And then it's there; wearing a hot brunette, smirking and smiling and enjoying it all so much. Dean wants to send it back to Hell; he would give his soul for the Colt right now.

But he doesn't have the Colt and he needs his soul for something else. Something more important.

The demon keeps telling him no. He doesn't understand. He doesn't want to die and he doesn't want to go to Hell, but he begs. Sam's dead and Dean can't live with that.

"Make sure you bury Sam before he starts stinking up the joint."

It's all slipping away, and Dean is terrified. So fucking scared.

"I'll give you one year, and one year only," she whispers in his ear. "It's a better deal than your dad ever got."

It is. Dean's father died for him, he went to Hell for him. He's still there, will always be there, for all eternity. On a good day, Dean is able to forget that for the space between one breath and the next.

He closes his eyes and kisses the demon. He expects to taste sulfur, but he doesn't.

He tastes ashes instead.

*

"No, Dean," Sam pleads frantically. "No, no, please, no!"

He paces in front of Dean, circles his brother and the crossroads demon.

"Don't do this, Dean, don't, please."

Sam is beside himself with fear and the wind senses it, picking up the leaves that litter the dirt road, swirling them around Dean and the demon.

They ignore it. The demon plays with Dean like a cat playing with a mouse and Sam's fury explodes out of him, sending tree limbs sailing through the air. One narrowly misses the windshield of the Impala, but Dean doesn't notice. His attention is fixed on the woman before him.

"It's a fire sale and everything must go," she gloats, and Sam roars in anger. For a moment, she looks unsettled, peering around the darkened road uneasily but then she turns and smirks up at Dean.

"What do I have to do?"

"First of all, quit groveling. Needy men are such a turn-off."

She circles Dean, smiling, and then leans in to whisper in his ear. "I'll give you one year, and one year only."

"No, Dean, no," Sam moans, despair gripping him.

When Dean reaches out to pull the demon in for a kiss, Sam throws his head back and screams. A flock of birds nesting in the nearby trees startle, flying up and away with a loud beating of wings, and Sam follows.

*

It takes longer to drive back to the cabin than it took to get to the crossroads, or maybe Dean just doesn't remember the earlier drive. The sun is coming up over the horizon, golden light slanting through the trees and across the road in front of him.

He won't believe it until he sees Sam, until he sees Sam alive and breathing. He doesn't trust the crossroads demon, but she said she'd do it and they sealed the deal, so Dean has no other option but to drive back to that godforsaken cabin, where he'd spent the darkest hours of his life.

Back to Sam.

Dean is terrified of what he might find when he gets there, but he does what he always does and drives.

It's weird, but he feels strangely alone. He feels like he's missing something he didn't know was there in the first place, and now it's gone. There's an empty space beside him that can only be filled by Sam.

*

~ Dean had left California hours ago, Stanford in his rearview mirror. Sam was fine. He looked pretty happy from a distance, and Dean had a ghost to deal with in Nevada.

The sun beat down across the desert, shimmering on the road in front of him, a silver mirage hiding whatever he was driving toward. Dean blinked and dug around in the pile of crap in the passenger seat, wondering what the hell he'd done with his sunglasses.

They weren't in the seat next to him but it looked like pretty much everything else Dean owned might be. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the junk scattered over the backseat. There were duffels and his old boots, which he thought might still have some wear in them, and fast food wrappers and a blanket, and empty cans and a million other things.

Dean wasn't sure when his car had turned into the city dump. A spike of anger shot through him and he jerked the steering wheel, hitting the brakes and skidding to a halt at the edge of the road.

He flung the car door open, stumbling out and resting for a minute with his hands on his knees, trying not to puke. After a few deep breaths he straightened up, then opened the back door and swept everything out in one furious motion. Boots and trash and clothing scattered over the ground. Dean threw himself around to the other side of the car, yanked open the passenger door and that pile of crap was out of the car and on the ground, too.

Dean slid back into the car and took off, tires spinning in the sand as he steered the car back onto the road.

It's not like any of that shit was actually going to fill up the empty space in the car. ~

*

Sam gasps and sits up quickly, as if he's been startled out of a deep sleep. He has no idea where the hell he is. The mattress under him is lumpy and when he gets to his feet, he sees it's bloodstained and bare.

There's a dull ache in his back and pain shoots down his spine when he twists to look in the flyblown mirror hanging on the wall. His lower back is red, and the skin looks raised and irritated, as if some sort of injury is healing.

He looks around and figures out he's in some sort of cabin. There's a pizza box and a bucket of fried chicken on a battered table, surrounded by bottles of soda and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Lit candles are scattered around the room.

The light is dim, as if it's only early morning and Sam shivers as a chill breeze comes in through the beat-up window frame. Torn lace curtains stir weakly in the cool air.

Sam tries to remember what happened, why he's here, wherever here is. And where the hell is Dean?

He remembers the fight with Jake. That yellow-eyed son of a bitch wanted them all to fight to the death, some sort of twisted game. There was only supposed to be one winner.

Sam remembers Dean's voice calling him, Dean running toward him, screaming Sam's name.

A red-hot pain in his back, sinking to his knees in the mud, and then everything faded to nothingness.

He turns to look at his back again, trying to remember more.

The door of the cabin opens slowly, as if whoever is out there is afraid to come inside.

It's Dean, and his face lights up with relief when he sees Sam standing at the mirror. There are shadows in his eyes but he looks happy as he pulls Sam into a crushing hug.

"Sammy. Thank God."

"Hey." Dean's arms tighten around him and Sam winces. "Ow. Dean."

"Sorry. I'm sorry, man, I'm just happy to see you up and around, that's all." Dean's voice is subdued, his vowels soft. He pulls back, smiling at Sam. Sam nods. "Come on, sit down."

They sit down at the table. Dean hasn't taken his eyes of Sam since he walked in the door. "Okay," Sam says. "Dean, what happened to me?"

Dean looks down at his hands, then back up at Sam.  
"Well, what do you remember?" He looks away again and it's making Sam uncomfortable.

"I saw you and Bobby, and, and, I felt this pain, this sharp pain, like white hot, you know? And then you started running at me, and uh, that's about it." Sam shrugs, wincing as another jolt of pain shoots up his back.

"Yeah, that kid stabbed you in the back. You lost a lot of blood, it was pretty touch and go for a while." There's something off about Dean's story but Sam can't put his finger on it.

"Dean, you can't patch up a wound that bad," he says, puzzled.

"Bobby could," Dean says quickly. "Who was that kid, anyway?"

And that distracts Sam from whatever is up with Dean. Fucking Jake. "Name is Jake. Did you get him?" He hopes Dean gutted him.

"No, he disappeared into the woods," Dean says, looking away again.

"We gotta find him, Dean, and I swear, I'm gonna tear that son of a bitch apart." Sam gets to his feet and Dean jumps up, too. He puts a hand on Sam's arm.

"Whoa, whoa, easy Van Damme. You just woke up. Let's get you something to eat. You want something to eat? I'm starving, come on."

Sam hesitates, and then nods. They sit back down and Sam eyes the food hungrily, suddenly starving.

While they eat slices of cold pizza, Sam fills Dean in on everything that happened since he walked into that dinner to get his brother some pie.

Well, except for the part where Yellow Eyes fed him demon blood when he was a baby. He's already enough of a freak, he doesn't need Dean to know that about him. He couldn't stand to have Dean look at him different.

"And that's when you guys showed up," Sam finishes.

"That's awful," Dean says. "Poor Andy."

Sam nods. "The demon said he only wanted one of us to walk out alive."

Dean looks at him, eyes wide. "He told you that?"

"Yup," Sam snorts in disgust. "He appeared in a dream."

"He tell you anything else?"

"No, no, that was it, nothing else." It feels easy, lying to Dean, and Sam knows that should bother him. But a life spent living in each other's pockets has made him pretty adept at knowing just how to color his voice with sincerity and earnestness, how to look right at Dean when he lies.

There's still something off about this whole thing. "You know, what I don't get, Dean, is if the demon only wanted one of us, then how did Jake and I both get away?"

"Well, I mean, they left you for dead. I'm sure they thought it was over." Dean takes a drink of soda and doesn't meet Sam's eyes.

The other side of that coin is that Sam knows Dean's tells, knows when Dean is keeping something from him. Dean is a terrible liar, always has been, but then again, he spent the first nine years of Sam's life practically living a lie, not telling him about hunting and the supernatural.

Dean is good at keeping secrets. He's just not good at hiding the fact that he has secrets to keep.

There's something here, something Dean is hiding. Sam knows when to push and when not to, though, and now isn't the time.

Besides, they have important things to do. They need to find Jake, need to find what the yellow-eyed demon's plans are. They need to get to Bobby's.

Dean seems to think otherwise. He acts as if Sam has just come back from the dead, or something.

"Whoa, whoa, stop, Sam, stop, dammit." Dean is on his feet and Sam can see how his hands are shaking. "You almost died. What would I – can't you just take care of yourself for a little bit? Just a little bit?"

"I'm sorry, no." There's definitely something weird going on here, but Sam will figure it out later. Right now they have work to do.

*

The drive to Bobby's doesn't take nearly as long as Dean would like it to. He has no idea what Bobby's gonna say but he knows it won't be good. There's nothing Bobby can do about it, though, and that's what matters.

What matters is sitting in the seat next to him, where he belongs, and nothing else is important. This is what matters.

Sure, Dean wants to kill that yellow-eyed son of a bitch and things just got a hell of a lot more urgent. Now that his life has an expiration date, Dean no longer has the luxury of time.

He hits the accelerator and Sam looks over at him, smiling grimly. Dean's suddenly anxious to get to Bobby's, to get started tracking the demon down, to finish this business.

He's with his brother and they have work to do.

*

They don't stay at Bobby's very long after they kill the demon that killed their mother and Jess. There's no cause for celebration, they've lost too much for that. It almost feels anti-climatic and Sam's sense of satisfaction is overshadowed by Dean's deal.

Dean's unsettled, eager to get on the road. Sam read a book once about some guy with terminal cancer, about how he dealt with knowing he was going to die sooner than he wanted to. It had a lot to do with letting go of what and who he was leaving behind. Sam wonders if Dean's thinking about the same things, or if it hasn't hit him yet.

What he's done.

They stop driving early on the second night out of Sioux Falls. It's been a while since they've done this, but the night is clear and the stars are bright.

Sam leans back against the windshield, stretching his legs out and crossing one over the other.

Dean settles beside him, cress-legged on the Impala's hood, cold bottle of beer nestled between his legs.

They don't speak for a long time. Dean is calm beside Sam, content to watch the stars in the sky above them. It's peaceful.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Sam says it quietly, although in his head he's screaming it. He's wanted to say it for the past three days and he's surprised he held it in this long.

It's pointless to put Dean on the defensive. Sam won't get any answers that way, only pronouncements that are both absolute and infuriating in their _I'm the oldest and I know best_ certainty.

Dean doesn't answer him for a long time and Sam is about to try again, when Dean sighs.

"Sammy, when you were a baby, I carried you out of the fire that killed Mom. When you were three, you tried to open the damn car door when Dad was driving about eighty miles an hour, and I pulled you back. And when you were five –" Dean stops, and swallows. Sam knows he's thinking about Wisconsin and the striga.

It's so quiet out here. Neither one of them speaks as they watch a shooting star fall to earth. Sam holds his breath; afraid to make any noise that will keep Dean from saying whatever he needs to say.

"I couldn't – can't – feel like that ever again. I couldn't let you die if there was any way I could stop it. I couldn't live – can't - you're – you mean _everything_." Dean's mouth tightens and his eyes are bright in the lights from the stars. "And it was like you were _there_, still, with me, and I just couldn't let you go," he whispers, barely loud enough for Sam to hear.

Sam gets it, he does. But it makes him angry all the same. He wants to ask Dean if he's even been here for the past year, since Dad died, if he's seen how he himself had reacted to someone _selling their soul_ for him. How does he think it will make Sam feel, when Dean is gone forever, when he's suffering unknown torments in Hell, for Sam?

He wants to throw all of that in his brother's face, rage at him for being so selfish that he can't live with the idea of failure. Can't live without Sam.

But the grief on Dean's face stops him from saying any of those things. He tamps down on his anger, shoves it all down somewhere deep.

The wind picks up and Dean shivers. It makes him look vulnerable and that's not something Sam is used to seeing.

His big brother isn't vulnerable. He can do anything, fix anything, make anything all better. He's done it all Sam's life, and really, when you get down to it, that's what he thinks he's done this time.

But the thing is, the idea of life without Dean is just as unfathomable to Sam as life without Sam apparently is to Dean.

Sam is just going to have to try and find his own way to fix things.

He will. He won't let his brother down. Failure is not an option.

He reaches over and puts his arm around Dean's shoulders, tugging him close. He half expects Dean to pull away, to shrug him off and pretend he's fine. It's what he does.

But Dean surprises him by leaning into Sam's side and shivering again.

"Dean," Sam says. He says it again when Dean doesn't respond. "Dean, look at me."

Dean raises his head then, looking at Sam with eyes filled with the kind of love that only happens once in a lifetime. Sam smiles and Dean shakes his head ruefully.

"Dork," he says fondly, and Sam kisses him.

 

_Boy, you're gonna carry that weight a long time…_


End file.
